weCare Africa is committed to empowering children as catalysts for the sustainable eradication of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Since its inception in 2010, the organization has maintained its focus on education, most recently through an ongoing comprehensive project to rehabilitate a primary school for over 200 children in an underserved village in Southern Nigeria. Thanks to generous donations by individual donors in 2016, the weCare Africa team was able to complete Phase 1 of our ongoing school rehab project and explore new projects to launch in the new year.
What Really Are IDP Camps?
In response to the current situation of unrest and displacement in Northern Nigeria caused by the terrorist group Boko Haram, the Nigerian government created camps for the victims who have been displaced from their hometowns. Over 2.3 million people have been displaced since May 2013 according to the United Nations as Boko Haram continues to bomb villages, schools and carry out mass abductions including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014.
These Internally Displaced Persons Camps, IDP camps as they will be referred to henceforth, have been poorly managed, and its inhabitants, poorly cared for. The weCare Africa team decided over the Christmas holidays to look into the situation and to see how it can provide sustainable assistance in the area of education. To this end, Aniekeme Umoh, with help from our friends at Project 1 Nation paid a charity visit to the IDP Durumi Camp of Gwoza and Bama to donate living supplies and assess the education landscape.
The Visit
In Nigeria, the IDP Camps are one of the most unreliable places to give donations, as corruption continues to plague Nigeria and people heartlessly embezzle money meant for displaced persons. This is saddening because these displaced persons are the most in need of those donations. In addition, some of the IDP camps have a reputation of being rowdy and unsafe. So in order to make sure the team had a successful visit, we reached out to our contacts and got connected with Kenechukwu of Project 1 Nation. He has been working extensively with IDP Camps in other parts of the country and was also planning to make a visit to a camp in Abuja. We decided to combine our efforts, and with the help of friends and generous donors, we were able to donate food supplies including cartons of noodles, spaghetti, cereal, bags of rice, beans, cooking oil, medicines for the infirmary, gently used clothes and lots of books.
The leads at the camp had assembled the children in advance of our arrival so when we got there we were able to ensure direct distribution of some of the food supplies to the children. The rest of the donations that we could not hand out ourselves were left with the chairman of the Camp to distribute amongst the families.
The Issues
The camp itself showed so much evidence of neglect and poor maintenance. A temporary home to over 1500 women and children, the camp has only two (2) toilets! Some of the families live under tents that don’t protect them from heavy rains. The classrooms were littered with broken chairs and desks, broken marker boards hung from the walls and some of the roofing had been dented in. It was very disappointing to hear that the only proper teacher at the camp, with over 400 children, is a youth corper who was so kindly volunteering his time and would be leaving in March.
After speaking to the woman leader, we found that there were secondary school-aged kids who remain at home (Camp) as their parents cannot afford for them to attend school. We also heard sad stories about women giving birth in the camp and losing their kids or losing their lives. Most upsetting was to hear of agencies pledging to help the women through empowerment workshops and skills training, only to dupe them and use them for publicity.
How Can weCare Africa Help?
In keeping with our mission and our focus on education, the weCare team has identified substantial ways in which it can help improve conditions at the Durumi IDP Camp and the children who are in desperate need of better living and learning resources:
i.) Funding of teachers – One of the biggest constraints to the progress of the children’s education is the lack of teachers. There is currently only one dedicated teacher for the classes – kindergarten through Grade 5. This volunteer teacher will be leaving in March. Some of the older people in the camp take turns to teach the kids as well. This is however not sufficient. Besides, the lack of proper training, experience and a curriculum creates a poor learning system in general.
The weCare team is currently looking into how much it would cost to fund teachers for the rest of the school year with the hope of sponsoring 2-3 additional teachers to teach the children. We believe that this will be the biggest first step because if we can get teachers, even in a non-ideal classroom situation, the children will at least be learning.
ii.) Repair of classroom equipment – As the pictures show, there has been extensive damage to classroom desks, chairs and boards. The weCare Africa team is currently assessing options for immovable desks and chairs. These may have a longer life span as they will not be subject to damage from relocation.
iii.) Sponsoring secondary school education – As we learned, there are some children who have completed their primary school education but have not been able to begin secondary school (grades 7 through 12). The Camp leaders explained the existence of a number of day secondary schools in the area. The weCare Africa team intends to learn more about the requirements for enrollment in some of these schools and to get a validation that the children actually meet the qualifications to progress to secondary school. After assessing the cost, the weCare Africa team will looking into potentially sponsoring some children through secondary school.
While weCare primarily focuses on education and educational resources, we identified other areas where we will be looking to partner with other persons and organizations to bring support:
iv.) Women empowerment – a number of the women at the camp are skilled workers. Some are tailors, some make soaps, etc. However, for a number of reasons including lack of materials and equipment such as sewing machines and poor access to a market for their goods, these women have been unable to continue their crafts. It would be a great help to the women, their families and the camp in general, should they be able to earn some income. weCare Africa is looking to partner with organizations working towards this goal.
We are inspired by the work Project 1 Nation has done at the IDP camps in Jos to help the young men earn a living by driving motorcycles and we will be fortunate to work with them on any such initiatives at this camp.
v.) Reintegration plan – the camps were never meant to be the end of the road for these displaced persons. Unfortunately, the government has not be assiduous with plans to reintegrate them into the society. This will likely be a big effort but it is definitely a necessary one. We have seen that the camp is not a conducive living environment and that its inhabitants are more or less under the mercy of well wishers and nonprofit organizations. That is not a sustainable situation.
Eventually, these people will need to get back on their feet and assimilate into the society. This reintegration plan is beyond the scope of the weCare Africa team but we are interested in working with persons and organizations who would love to help the families at this camp as they try to regain a normal life.
How Can You Help?
The above solutions are not exhaustive. There is so much that can be done to help the children and women at the Durumi IDP Camp. We know we can make a difference and we hope you know you can too! If you would like to support weCare Africa’s efforts, please click here to donate.
