Nigeria is a big country,
quite diverse in terms of cultural differences,
but when it comes to the number of children
out of school,
it is on top.
And when I went to Nigeria for the first time,
I spoke about the girls
who were abducted by Boko Haram.
Everybody’s just so desperate
for this positive change
of education for girls there,
because girls feel that this is the only way
through which they can have a future in which
they can feel safe.
My name is Munira Yerimah.
I work with Borno Women Development Initiative
as the Education Manager.
Girls across Nigeria face a lot of barriers
with regards to education.
So most of the girls who live
in the locations where Boko Haram have taken
over
don’t have access to school.
My name is Abubakar Askira.
I am the Director of Programmes and Administration in Hallmark Leadership Initative.
Students cannot access the school
because of distance from their communities
to their schools,
especially the girls.
The boys are less vulnerable
because they are not the target,
but for the girls,
parents are afraid of being abducted and harassed
while going to school.
And also there are cultures and traditions in Nigeria
that do not allow girls or give opportunities
for girls to go to school.
And some traditions sees girls’ education as waste of resources and waste of time.
I am a Malala Fund champion.
I am a local activist who tries
to provide access for girls’ education
as well as to bring reforms with regards
to free, safe and quality education.
In Nigeria, we have seven champions.
The Nigerian Chapter meets in person
or we have meetings online to discuss our
activities with regards to the objective of the chapter.
Borno Women Development Initiative
is partnering with Malala Fund in Nigeria
to implement a project on the mobilisation
of girls
back to school with the use of
the approach of peer-to-peer
education,
in order to have girls — both in-school,
as well as out-of-school girls —
to come together to discuss education issues,
and also to share knowledge and experiences
with regards to challenge they face
during the conduct of their learning.
We have reached out to about
500 out-of-school girls.
We give opportunity to children to finish
their school,
and get the sense of responsibility
to take care of themselves after secondary school.
We are seeing that the girls are now comfortable
to be able to speak out with regards
to what is their challenges to education.
Malala Fund encourages me so that I can study
and achieve what I want to be.
My hopes for the future is to see every Nigerian
girl
to be in school and to be able to achieve
what she wants to achieve
and to able to become what she wants to become in the future.
That is my hope.
