Author: Administrator

23Apr

CJID Trains 20 Journalists on Environment, Health and Climate Change Reporting in Abuja

Press Release

The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, through its Development Practice desk, trains twenty researchers and journalists across different newsrooms in Nigeria to understand the nexus between environment, health, and climate change.

The two-day training was organised by the centre to build the capacity of journalists and deepen their understanding of the linkages between climate change, the environment, and various health issues.

The training was part of its activities to mark this year’s World Health Day, themed “Our planet, Our health”.

Speaking at the training, the Deputy Director at CJID, Akintunde Babatunde in his welcome address said with the devastating impact of climate change on the health of the people, the time is now for journalists and researchers to be empowered with the right skills to not only tell the stories of vulnerable groups who are facing the impact but also to assign responsibility and hold governments accountable.

Annually, the World Health Organization (WHO) sets a day aside to create awareness of a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern, and this celebration conceived by the WHO is also actively celebrated by its member nations to raise particular issues of interest on selected themes in respect of those member states.

This year’s theme, therefore, focused on the urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create a society focused on well-being.

An eye-opener

The participants, mostly Abuja-based journalists across different newsrooms, who were tutored by seasoned climate change and health experts, saw the training as an eye-opener to deep dive into the climate change and health issues plaguing humanity.

Seyifunmi Adebote, an environmentalist and participant opined that the training would set the pace to consequentially report the various health and climate change issues.

He said: “In the last 5 years of working around climate change and environmental policies across Nigeria and beyond, it has always been clear that there are strong connections between ‘Health’ and ‘Climate Change’ but I haven’t had the opportunity to write about this.

He noted that one thing that stood out for him at the first-day session “is the brilliance of the resource persons – all young, experienced, and knowledgeable experts. I was intrigued with how they practically explained the strong connection between health, climate change, and environmental issues in Nigeria, with a focus on how we can see similar issues through different lenses and write about them”.

Mr Adebote said he is excited to be a part of the selected journalists and looking forward to sharing his story ideas as well as listening to the ideas that will be shared by other colleagues during the story lab session.

Also, Vivian Chime, a climate change reporter at The Cable said the training has rekindled her passion for great story ideas to pursue.

She noted that: “The facilitators are very detailed in their explanations and take the time to draw up connections between climate change, environment, health, governance, and everyday life. The training is really all-encompassing and the knowledge I’m gaining is one I know that would help me not just in my climate reporting but in my entire journalism career.

Ms Vivian stated that she loves “the level of great minds who are here for the training and the meaningful conversations on the way forward for Africa as it relates to climate change and sustainability.

“It is truly a masterclass and I appreciate CJID for putting this together, she concluded.

Just like Mr Adebote, Abdulkareem Mojeed who reports for Premium Times, said “the training was an eye-opener for stories that clearly show how Climate change manifestation affects the environment and its health implications on the ecosystems to be told.

“I believe the second-day training would be more rigorous and engaging. With this, I hope to churn out exquisite stories that would show how the aforementioned elements (climate change, environment, and health) influence the floral and fauna of our ecosystems for the public good”, Mr Mojeed explained.

After the training, the journalists will be supported with story grants to produce insightful and data-driven analyses on the different climate change, environment, and health issues.

03Apr

Placing Water at The Center of it All

Water scarcity is a global phenomenon that requires urgent attention & sustainable solutions.

More than ever before, in recent years as the ‘climate change’ persist water bodies shrink, with many communities facing drought, worsening the already existing water scarcity scenario.

Steps must be taken now to ensure water provision becomes a key factor in community development.

With the aim that no one is left behind in the water accessibility table.

The reality is that we cannot say we are on the right path of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) without successfully meeting up with the #SDG6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).

In every sector of human development and community wellness water availability and accessibility is key.

What aspect of development can we actually do without water? When we talk of food production, health care, fashion, tourism, transportation, animal husbandry, power generation (electricity), infrastructural development, even the education sector (imagine a school without water… A topic for another day) etc, all revolves around water. However, we can categorically say at the centre of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs ) is “access to clean water”…(Goal6 ~ Clean Water and Sanitation).

“Universal health coverage without clean water provision is just a theoretical approach”. In the course of community work, we have encountered Primary Health Cares facing a lack of water and the experience was a devastating one.

If we are to truly have a healthy community clean water provision must be prioritised. If the government, private sectors and individuals work in synergy on water provision, access to ‘clean water’ by everyone, everywhere is possible.

Leave no one behind .

By ~ Ójónugwa Yahaya

30Mar

Fuel Scarcity in Abuja: The Aftermath, and Fate of Black marketers

The queues on the street of Abuja have disappeared and the fuel scarcity is not as worrisome as it was a few weeks back. However, one cannot say if this is temporary or we should brace up for another possible fuel scarcity – perhaps a worse one, anytime from now.

Most fuel stations are now discharging Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly known as Petrol or Fuel, though most of them use one or two pump points even where there are as many as 20 discharge pump points. This means people who need the products may not be attended to immediately but what is a 5 minutes wait compared to a 5 hours queue? experienced at the peak of the scarcity.

The big question now is, why are black-market fuel sellers still lining up across some parts of Abuja city, with kegs filled with fuel and waving short pipes? On March 30, Media For Community Change Initiative tried to put a human face to the problem and understand the rationale behind the black marketers and their trade.After so much struggle, the young man understood that we were just asking what his name was and he replied, “Musbahu” without a smile as he tried to lift the 10 litres keg filled with fuel. Even with the help of an interpreter, he couldn’t tell what his age was, it didn’t seem to matter to him but he couldn’t be more than 12 years. We tried to ask if he was working for a Boss but it felt like the young boy was programmed to only tell the price of his trade “Na ₦3 500” and propose a reduced price of ₦2 800. Nothing else!

Just a few metres away, another young boy runs towards us with his 10 litres keg (popularly called jerrican), the keg boldly bears his name freshly written with a black marker, “Abdullahi”. He lifts and opens the content trying to convince me, “Oga, na better one!” He needed to do this for two reasons, the colour of the fuel in his keg was different from the others, slightly turning black. Secondly, he must have heard how weary people became with multiple news of vehicles engines being knocked off due to bad fuel.“What will you be doing if you aren’t here selling fuel”, I tried to ask him after confirming his name was truly Abdullahi as written on the keg. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” I sputtered in a mix of English and Hausa. He managed to explain “na my transport to go house I dey find, Oga,” there was silence and he walked away after a while!Awalu, another black marketer explained how just recently he has taken up this trade, “Me, I bi conductor for Utako, if work dey now I dey go – Lagos, Kano, Zamfara, anywhere.” He also agreed that the black-market business, “na quick money”, yet he would prefer to be gainfully employed elsewhere.Along the Airport Expressway, a few kilometres away from the City Gate, another black-market fuel seller crossed the road in a rush and almost pushed his 10 litres keg through the window. Suleiman was more expressive and seemed jovial. Couldn’t be that he had made much sales already at this early hour of the day; perhaps, this new line of work had brought in lots of returns lately.

When a black-market fuel seller tells you a 10-litre keg of fuel is worth ₦3 500, you do the maths and wonder why he is making a profit of over 100%, if he bought it at the standard cost of ₦165 per litre. After some haggling with Suleiman – we had a bit of back and forth. What I figured was that when black market seller reluctantly agrees to sell 10-litres of fuel for ₦2 800 or ₦2 500 but what they don’t tell you is that they bought at ₦2 200 or ₦2400 from the fuel attendants and only a paltry profit between ₦300 to ₦600 is made for every 10-litre black market fuel sold. At the peak of the fuel scarcity, it was possible to sell as many as 30 kegs at ₦3 500 each. So much profit – for an illegal trade!In an attempt to fill the puzzle of where the source of the constant flow of the black market fuel comes from, we tried to ask some fuel attendants, none of them was willing to share any thoughts. All we could get from them was, “we nur dey sell for keg” and it is not uncommon to see some attendants charging at people walking into the premises with kegs, “don’t bring that jerrican come here o.”

Over the last 8 weeks, this fuel scarcity has had its toll on various sectors of the economy. Small businesses had to resort to unscrewing generator tanks to get fuel, explaining why the cost of goods and services rendered by SMEs have shot up. In Abuja, we have seen transport costs rise by about 100%, in some cases 200%. No sector has been spared!

As we take in a breath of fresh air and smile at fuel attendants when we drive through the fuel stations, we dread seeing Nigerians back on the street, queuing for fuel or resorting to black market sources to fuel their day-to-day activities. So at the back of our minds, we ask ourselves, have we addressed the root of the problem? Will this be the end of fuel scarcity or should Nigerians brace up for another – perhaps a worse fuel scarcity, anytime from now?

Written by: Seyifunmi Adebote and Jimoh Oluwatobi Segun

Photographs by: Kim Dashong

23Jul

USING REUSABLE PADS TO TACKLE MENSTRUAL POVERTY IN NIGERIA.

Menstrual hygiene is one very important component of the female gender and by extension the male gender. It is believed that roughly half of the female population around 26 per cent of the global population are of reproductive age. UNICEF reports that globally, 2.3 billion people lack basic sanitation services.

With the increasing cost of living and the associated water and sanitation issues in Nigeria, it is getting more challenging for women – especially those in rural areas – to afford menstrual packs and maintain proper hygiene during their monthly (menstrual) flow.

In response to this situation in Nigeria, between July 14 to 16, the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association (NAOWA) in Abuja as part of their 3-day empowerment program trained over 100 women, mostly wives of men of the Nigeria Army to produce over 500 reusable pads.

The second day of the event was a 4-hours practical session as participants were taught how to make reusable pads. The lead facilitator, Mrs Ifeoma Okonkwo, a trained Menstrual Hygiene educator started by enlightening participants on what reusable pads were and their importance. According to her, reusable pads are very important because they reduce the risk of urinary tract infections.

Menstrual poverty is a threat to the health of women and reusable pads are a great tool in tackling this. Mrs Okonkwo also stressed the importance of changing the pad frequently during a menstrual cycle. Emphasizing the uniqueness of the reusable pads, she explained that asides from being hygienic, reusable pads are very cost-efficient and can be easily stored for later use.

After the presentation, there was a demonstration of the processing involved in the production of the reusable pads. Thereafter, the women were grouped and following the guideline by designated volunteers, the participants produced reusable pads using flannel, cotton, cardboard and other materials. The participants expressed their joy after the session and made known their plans to teaching their colleagues through step-down training when they returned to their respective locations.

The training was sponsored by the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association, facilitated by Media For Community Change (MFCC) and held at the NAOWA Event Centre in Abuja. The pads produced will be distributed to women and young girls for use in place of rags and other unsanitary options that are resorted to during monthly periods.

At the close of the event, Mr. Jimoh Oluwatobi Segun the Executive Director of Media For Community Change (MFCC) urged the women to consider the skills as a very important one and should commit themselves to empower other women.

06Jan

5 Easy Ways to Locate Communities in First-time Visit

If you work directly with communities, either as a community mobilizer, data collector, programs coordinator etc, then you should read this.

Up until now, I never had a glimpse of how challenging locating communities could be despite my numerous visits as a worker in the development space.

Usually, a member of the team would have done the background work that makes it easy to locate and arrive at the community without having to paranbulate in circles.

But for this particular visit, no previous visit had been made, we only had a contact person who was to stand at the given landmark to guide us into the community.

Vests/trousers on and boots worn, we were set to be on the field. We were able to navigate our way to one of the fore descriptions given by the contact person. Not with some super powers of course, we asked people by the roadside.

Although we were certain to be on the right path but couldn’t locate the landmark our contact person (whom I would refer to as Mrs E) gave us.

Then, we called. She asked us to locate a burial ground. Hahaha….don’t be scared. We asked passersby and bikemen and even that was so hard due to the language barrier. We had to keep describing with gestures. I remember my team lead described this way: “person wey die, where e dey sleep” while striking his neck with a finger to give further clues😀😀😀.

We kept making calls to Mrs E for better descriptions but it wasn’t helping matters. Somehow, we went past the burial ground and found ourselves somewhere else. We called Mrs E and asked again for descriptions and of all landmarks, she asked us to locate a casket shop. Are you thinking what we were thinking? Why do the landmarks have to do with the dead? For a second, we hoped we weren’t going to a community of the dead. Lol.

Thankfully, that was much easier. Right in front of the shop, we found Mrs E and her two young boys exhausted, obviously. Did I mention it took us over 40 minutes searching for the landmark to meet Mrs E?

This funny experience inspired this article. And I would be giving a few hints on locating communities during first visits or out reaches or projects.

1. First, ask for prominent landmarks like Churches, schools, billboards. For instance, we found a very popular church which could have been a better landmark and would have saved us the stress, time and of course, fuel. Emphasis on ask. The contact person might not mention but you should ask.

2. Next, have enough fuel. So you don’t get stranded while parabulating should incase there isn’t a filling station closeby.

Extra tip: drive in your car or get a private car. Hired/public motorists might not have the patience and might even charge exorbitantly beyond your budget.

3. If you don’t speak the major language of the community, it will be great to have someone bridge the language barrier for you.

4. Please, have enough airtime. Hahaha. You would need this to keep on with the calls. Don’t rely on getting airtime from roadside sellers as you might not get and then, don’t also rely on bank recharge as the network might not be strong enough.

5. Place minutes on distances. This one is very vital. When your contact person says, “that place is far from where I am saying”. You need to ask about the definition of what they call ‘far’. For instance, we told Mrs E we were somewhere and she said we were far from the description. We drove for barely a few minutes thinking we couldn’t have reached the place. Instincts told us to call again and voila, she said we had passed a long time.

Let us know how helpful this is for your next visit. Do let us also know of other tips that have worked for you.

26Aug

CSJ trains 50 NGOs on the use of shadow reporting in tackling Gender-based issues

Center for Social Justice held a two-day workshop on 20^th and 21^st of August for 50 Non-Governmental Organisations from the Federal Capital Territory, Adamawa and Sokoto States on the use of shadow reporting as it relates to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) issues.

Shadow reports are used by NGOs to present alternative information submitted by state parties to human right treaties.

The workshop also touched on Follow-up on Obligations in relation to Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms on SGBV, Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), Harmful Practices (HP) and the promotion of the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).

It was done in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme/European Union (UNDP/EU) on the implementation of components of the Spotlight Initiative.

Giving a welcome address, the Lead Director of CSJ, Eze Onyekpere told participants that the Spotlight Initiative is focused on the eradication of Sexual and Gender-based violence and promotion of the Sexual and Reproductive Health rights of women and girls.

“It has an overall vision of a Nigeria where all women and girls, particularly the most vulnerable, live a life free from violence and harmful practices”, he said.

Eze also noted that the programme seeks to equip women rights advocates, civil society groups and the media with greater knowledge, capacity and tools on gender responsive programming and engagement of government to eliminate the aforementioned issues.

Participants were taught on the definition, purpose, method and when to write shadow reports. Strategies to maximize benefits from shadow reporting as well as follow-up issues were equally discussed.

Reacting to the developments from the workshop, Silverleen Aroh from Save the Child Initiative Nigeria, in an interview with Media For Community Change spoke on the importance of shadow report.

For her, it allows CSOs and NGOSs collaborate and engage in the activities of the government.

She said: “I was able to learn the need for CSOs involvement and synergy among CSOs to be able to come up with shadow reports that will support what the government is doing and push them to do more.”

Another participant, Emmanuel Ezechukwubem from Kiek Foundation stressed the need for awareness on several existing policies and laws.

He called on CSOs and NGOs to help with such awareness to the public particularly the rural communities.

He said: “Coming from Anambra state, if you go there and tell a woman that they have the right to own a land, they will disagree. We should go out there and create awareness.

“We have to go for awareness creation to the communities to make people know about these laws that is the only way to get citizens to participate. If they do not have ideas about these laws, how will you make them participate?”

Lastly, Chioma Kanu from Mothers And Marginalised Advocacy Centre lamented that Nigeria has several unimplemented policies and laws that could promote gender related issues citing the Violence Against Persons Prohibition, Child Rights Act among others.

She equally pointed out that traditional practices still supersede these acts.

She said: “I learnt of so many policies and laws that promote gender related issues. We have this act of never implementing the laws that we have passed and then we also have our traditional laws clashing with the national and state laws.

“In practice, it appears as if we focus more on the traditional law which to me, I feel is not helpful, for instance we have the Child Rights Act at the National level which protects Nigerian children. Some states that even bothered to pass it ‘panel beat’ it to such extent that it lacks the true essence of the principal act. There is a whole lot of watering down issues based on our tradition and religion.”

She rather advised that the federal government put up some mechanisms to override state laws and insist on national laws to protect women and children.

“We have the Gender and Equal opportunities act which the government is yet to pay so much attention to and CSOs are wearing thin on what to do. We have also the VAPP act which has been assented to and some states have domesticated but we want to see implementation of the law.

“We also want to see National Orientation Agency taking a proactive step towards creating sensitization for people to know that these laws exist and they can utilize them to protect women and girls in Nigeria”, she added.

25Aug

WASH: Nigerian Based NGO and Partners to leverage Data to address water Poverty.

In an effort to leverage technology as a tool for development, Media for Community Change, a non-governmental organization based in Abuja, Nigeria is partnering with US-based NGO, BLI Global to launch Data4WASH on Thursday, August 27, 2020. The web-based interactive online platform has been designed for open source use and is designed to highlight areas in need of water improvement facilities while showcasing areas that have achieved improved wastewater treatment practices.

The platform will aggregate verified data generated and mapped with GPS coordinates to create a WASH map used to make a case for driving investment into the design and installation of proper WASH facilities in communities experiencing water poverty across the world.

Speaking ahead of the launch, the CEO, Jimoh Oluwatobi Segun described the platform as the one that would highlight areas in need of water improvement facilities while showcasing areas that have achieved improved wastewater treatment practices.

The purpose of the platform is to identify through generated community-driven data, areas of water stress, and poor sanitation in developing countries with Nigeria as a pilot. These will be juxtaposed in an interactive map with areas in developed countries practicing proper water and sanitation to serve as best practices. Our objective is to raise investment into developing proper water and waste treatment facilities and sanitation facilities in the rural communities/cities in developing countries as submitted through verifiable data by community members.

Explaining what inspired the Data4WASH portal, Maria Auma Horne, Co-founder and CEO BLI Global said that the platform will be a great way to drive financial and technical support to communities in Nigeria and gradually other communities in developing countries that are in dire need of improved sanitation facilities and access to clean and safe drinking water. She also commended the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria for their commitment to engaging their final year students of the Department of Statistics in the data collection process. This project also offers students a continuous opportunity to practically interpret data and harness technology to improve development.

Expected at the virtual launch of the Data4WASH portal include Talia Fried, the Director, Global Policy & Government Affairs of Global Citizen who is expected to share how Global Citizen is engaging in the WASH sector; Emmanuel Iorkumbor, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of WaterAid Nigeria will share a few words during the launch to give insight into WaterAid’s work in the WASH sector and why it is vital in this trying time; Kassim Gawusu-Toure, the Executive Coordinator of African Youth Initiative on Climate Change – one of Africa’s largest youth coalition on Climate Change also applauded the innovation and pledge to support by sharing with her over 5000 members.

‘Seyifunmi Adebote,

Programs Director, Media for Community Change.

21Aug

Seyifunmi Adebote, others to speak at UN’s #Youth4ClimateLive series – IG Live

Seyifunmi Adebote, a young environmental leader in Nigeria will be speaking through the UN Youth Envoy’s Instagram account as part of a panel on a special Instagram Live on Friday, August 21st between 06.00 pm-06:45 pm WAT. This is part of activities to set the stage for #Youth4ClimateLive Episode 3: Driving Youth Action.

Other youth speakers on the panel include India’s Environmentalist and Wildlife filmmaker, Malaika Vaz and Dominican Republic’s Climate and Youth Activist, Claudia Taboada. The IG Live session will be hosted by Ahmed Badr on Connect4Climate’s channel in partnership with the office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth as part of the #31DaysOfYOUth campaign and the #Youth4ClimateLive Series.

As a run-up to Pre-COP26 in Milan, Italy and the COP26 which will now hold in Glasgow, the United Kingdom from Monday, 1 November 2021 to Friday, 12 November 2021, the Youth4ClimateLive Series is hosted by the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, in collaboration with Connect4Climate – World Bank Group and the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth.

Seyifunmi’s innovative approach to climate education through his widely-listened-to Climate Talk Podcast has earned him this spot on Friday’s Instagram Live. He is expected to address a global audience, discussing “What Meaningful Youth Engagement means”, and highlighting effective climate-focused initiatives and opportunities in Nigeria and internationally.

10Aug

After 29 years, Abandoned Enugu community gets the first-ever borehole

By Titilope Fadare

The importation of COVID-19 reiterated the need for nations to focus and invest more in the health sector. The use of soap and clean water was introduced as part of the preventive measures to stem the spread of the virus but it obviously alienates those who still struggle to access clean water for their daily needs.

About 60 million Nigerians are unable to get clean water supply services and 150 million people do not have basic handwashing facilities with soap and water, according to WASH National Outcome Routine Mapping (WASH-NORM) in a 2018 survey.

Eziama community situated in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu state is at the other end of the divide because clean water for them was a luxury before the global pandemic and it still is, making them joggle between water related diseases and the virus.

The community was brought to limelight following tweets from Daniel Ugwu, an Environment expert in February 2020 when a female colleague informed him that the residents have never had access to clean water since the existence of Enugu state in 1991.

Stupefied, Ugwu decided to embark on a journey to get firsthand information with the aim of finding either a temporal or long-lasting solution.

“It (Eziama) has existed for as long as Enugu state has been existing. I got to know about them through a colleague. She is married to a community that is close to Eziama Community. She has had some projects she did with the young people there. That was the way she was able to identify the challenges they face with respect to water. When she told me about the community, she wanted us to take up a campaign so the government’s attention can be brought to the plight of the community.

“Initially, I didn’t believe such a community actually existed. I asked her to get me some pictures. She sent it to me. I tweeted about it. Some people who I believe may be close to the government started attacking that the picture is fake and people should disregard it. I challenged them to also produce another picture to counter the narrative. So I felt I should go to the community myself and not rely on third-party information”, Ugwu told MFCC.

Idodo River serves as the only source of water for bathing, washing, cooking and drinking for Eziama, six other communities, 12 surrounding villages and cattle brought by herdsmen.

Uwgu said: “In that river, they bathe, wash and process their fufu (a local food made from cassava). When we interviewed the traditional leader, he said even some herdsmen bring their cattle to the river. The cattle will drink and urinate there too. Some people flush their toilet and it moves to the river”.

Eziama women, children worst hit by water crisis

Culturally mandated to carry out domestic duties, women, and children are mostly affected as they walk miles to get water asides being vulnerable to diseases from dirty water.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 6,000 children die daily from water related diseases while women and girls across the world collectively spend 200 million hours everyday collecting water.

Similarly, women and children residing in Eziama Community are not exempted.

“The issues the women face is that the river serves 12 villages and some of those villages are very far from the river so these women have to travel a very long distance to access the water. That is a whole lot of difficulty.

“We also noticed that the elderly women in the community, those of them who walk that long-distance, will now have to resort to young men using bikes to fetch the water. A gallon of water- 25 liters goes between N50 to N100 depending on where they live.

“When you go to the primary healthcare center, you see the women and the children who are the most impacted by this because the women are the ones who culturally go to fetch water to carry out domestic duties”, Ugwu said.

Typhoid, Diarrhea rampant

Out of 10 health cases in the community, six to seven of them are related to typhoid. During the dry season, diarrhea is more rampant.

These were some of the findings from Temple Oraeki, Hope Spring Water’s Country Representative in Nigeria, when he visited the community with his team after Ugwu’s tweet.

“After we got the information, we went on a preliminary visit, my team members and I. On the first visit, I interviewed their nurse. There is only one community health centre which they just opened last year. Prior to that, they never had one. She pointed out that cases of water-related diseases are very common with the community members.

“She said out of 10 cases she gets every day, six to seven of them are typhoid cases. She also pointed out that cases of diarrhea exist within the community. She was quite specific that during December and January, that is when the children have cases of diarrhea. What I found out was that from December- January, it is usually not the rainy season. The volume of the river goes down that period. This is what I figured out.

“She said she tells them that their disease is caused by unclean water but she cannot do anything apart from telling them. Some of them that have money get ‘pure water’ (water packed in sachet) but there are not a lot in the community that is financially buoyant to get it. I knew that was not a sustainable means to get access to clean water.”

Eziama residents resort to herbal concoction and mixture to treat and manage their health issues.

10-year federal water project lying in waste

Although the community is about 40 minutes away from the city centre, it appears to have been neglected by the government. This is besides the poor road network that connects to Eziama.

A federal water project has been lying in waste since 2010 after Contractors abandoned the project due to unreleased funds.

“The King also pointed out an abandoned federal government water project in 2010 that was meant to be cited in the community. They just did about 60% of the project and it was abandoned. They said the contractors said the government was not releasing funds for the remaining aspect of the project to be complete. It was a project running into millions of naira”, Oraeki said.

In August, the community, especially women were overjoyed after the handover of their first ever water pumped borehole following an intervention by Hope Spring Water.

While it seems like respite has come for this community, a plethora of issues was raised by the interventionists.

Oraeki said: “Our major challenge executing a borehole was access to the community. The access was muddy and swampy. The location where the borehole was cited is quite strategic- at the centre of the hospital, primary and secondary school. Although that would not be enough to serve them because there are about 2500 people and that is the first-ever borehole.

“You can imagine the kind of pressure that will be on that borehole. It doesn’t solve the entire water problem. It is still very key that more interventions are done to the community to get access to clean water. They have just one health centre and it is not enough to handle the many cases that you see. There are so many people coming in and going out.”

Urging the government to look into the abandoned federal water project, he expressed belief that it has the potential to alleviate water poverty for not only Eziama but surrounding communities.

Ugwu on his part raised a campaign for the community through the MTN Foundation to cite more boreholes.

“I led the campaign on twitter and a lot of people nominated them again. I just hope the community will be considered by MTN Foundation. The campaign is not to shame anyone but to showcase to charitable organisations who could be of help. At least let people have access to clean water for a daily decent life”, he added.

07Aug

Hamzat Lawal Listed as a Global Malala Fund Education Champion

Following his advocacy for policy and programmatic solutions in the education sector, Follow The Money Campaigner and CODE’s Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, has been listed as a Malala Fund Education Champion with 57 others from around the world to accelerate progress towards girls’ secondary education.

Hamzat Lawal was named alongside other notable Nigerian campaigners: Olabukunola Williams, Executive Director, Education as a Vaccine (EVA) and Benjamin John, Programs Manager, Restoration of Hope Initiative (ROHI).

This announcement was made by the Chief Programmes Officer at Malala Fund, Maliha Khan, on the Malala website. According to Khan, as COVID-19 threatens to force millions more girls out of school, Champion-led programmes and advocacy work is now even more important.

Reacting to the announcement, Lawal said “it is an honour to be listed to contribute to the fight for a right to education, especially for the girl child in Africa. The increasing number of out-of-school children especially in Nigeria’s North, continues to be an issue of great concern. Statistics show that for every 100 boys of primary age out of school, 121 girls are denied the right to education, worsening gender-based discrimination and putting girls at a disadvantage. Issues of water, sanitation and hygiene, and in many cases, insecurity affecting the delivery of education in conflict affected areas, are also factors driving children – particularly girls – away from the classroom.

Lawal will use CODE’s Follow The Money model to train and launch citizen-led teams to identify barriers to girls’ education in Adamawa state, northeast Nigeria. The team will advocate for and track the State’s spending on education and encourage government officials to invest in gender-responsive school infrastructure in creating conducive learning and safe space for girls to reach their full potential in life.

Education has remained one of Follow The Money’s focal thematic areas, through which the initiative has facilitated the provision of several school amenities and infrastructure across grassroots communities in Nigeria (through several social accountability mechanisms).

It also led civil society campaigns for the amendment of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act. Hamzat Lawal has also championed and co-organized other key campaigns for girl-child education in Northern Nigerian stressing that even during crisis, Education cannot wait for girls.