Teachers working with Nigeria’s internally displaced children and youth, many of whom have been traumatized by insurgent violence, are called upon to do far more than teach. USAID’s Education Crisis Response program provides teachers at non-formal learning centers specialized sensitivity training and guides them in creating a friendly, welcoming and supportive learning environment.

Ahmad Ali loves teaching. In particular, he looks forward to the boys and girls in his afternoon classes in the Village of Gwallaga in Nigeria.

He describes them as special, unique and fortunate. They come from other communities that have been ripped apart by insurgents, forcing the children to flee to the safety in and around Bauchi.

The village is participating in a program that established a non-formal learning center to meet the educational and psychological needs of these internally displaced children.

“Well, there are lots of changes for them,” Ali says. “Some of them lost their parents, which made them afraid. They did not trust anyone, and also as a result of difficult situations that they found themselves, it sometimes becomes very much difficult to control them.”

Ali says during the time the internally displaced children spent together, along with the non-formal center’s support services, progress was made.

“As days passed, they came around,” he says. “We eventually talked and laughed together all the time.”

Ali and other teachers were selected to be trained as part of the Education Crisis Response program, an initiative of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Implemented by Creative Associates International in cooperation with the Nigerian government, community leaders and civil society organizations, it is designed to assist internally displaced children in northern Nigeria with access to literacy, math and life skills so that they can eventually reintegrate into the country’s formal school system.

Drawing teachers from local communities

To reach that goal, Education Crisis Response turned to the host communities themselves to find the teachers needed.

“We approached the community and asked, ‘Can you [identify any] trained teachers, retired teachers or anybody else,’” says Ayo Oladini, Director of the Nigeria Education Crisis Response. “Then we give a small aptitude test and are able to select one that would be a facilitator.”

The local teachers—also called learning facilitators and instructors—have a unique understanding not only of the local dynamics but also of the students’ needs. Because many of the youth have been traumatized during their forced displacement, the teachers receive additional special sensitivity training.

Promoting sensitivity & “do no harm”

“We work on the principle of ‘do no harm,’” Oladini says. “Before they even engage the children at all, we bring them in for orientation and training, largely to let them know that this is a school, granted, but it is a school with a difference.”

During the five-day training, teachers are taught how to create a friendly and welcoming learning environment for the often traumatized children, incorporating group activities and recreation, a break from the usually more formal lecture-type settings of most Nigerian classrooms.

The facilitators are shown techniques that create a student-centered environment, instead of relying on lectures, notes on the chalkboard and memorization.

Teachers in the 294 learning centers established by Education Crisis Response are also encouraged to invite local community leaders into their classrooms to emphasize messages of peace and tolerance.

Displaced for years in some cases, many students face extreme challenges for which teachers in the program must also be prepared.

Helping students catch up

“When these children came, we found out that most of them have lost a lot in education because most of them [have] stayed for two years without going to school,” says Jummai Dauda, a classroom instructor at the Sabon Kaura non-formal learning center in Bauchi. “When I started with them, most of them have forgotten almost everything they had been learning in their schools, because when they came, they cannot read, they cannot write.”

Teachers create support structures within the student groups themselves through pair and group work; students who are more advanced can serve as in-class mentors for those lagging behind.

It is important that Education Crisis Response facilitators teach in local languages with an emphasis on literacy. That emphasis, Oladini explains, provides students with more learning opportunities even after they leave the program.

“We now retrain these teachers on how to teach reading, with the hope that when you’re able to read, you’re able to comprehend,” Oladini said. “Then you can use that skill in other subjects and do very well.”

A community effort

To support its cadre of teachers, the program relies on local committees known as Community Coalitions to backstop each facilitator, help monitor attendance and provide basic supplies to students when needed. Local government education officials are also encouraged to pay regular visits to the classrooms and give feedback to the program that can then be used in future teacher trainings.

With more than 1.2 million people displaced by insurgents in Nigeria’s northeast, the needs are great. But for teachers like Dauda, evidence of the program’s success is everywhere.

Dauda, who has worked from the outset with students who were barely literate, said she measures success not only academically but also by the spirit of her students.

“When we started with them now, I can see many changes in them, because most of them can read now, and they can write,” Dauda said. “And almost all of them are happy being in school.”

Produced for USAID by Creative Associates International. Written by David Snyder, with reporting by Michael J. Zamba and Ernest Akoma in Nigeria.

Afternoon classes have just ended and the children were playing in the courtyard in front of Sabon Kaura school, though the heat in Bauchi, Nigeria, didn’t slow down the approximately 30 students. They were happy to be in school at all.

Until recently, the 10 to 13 years old students in the Sabon Kaura school lived in other communities in Northern Nigeria. However, those schools no longer exist. Indeed, some of their villages have been abandoned.

An insurgency has wreaked havoc on parts of Nigeria, displacing more than 2 million people—one of the largest concentrations of internally displaced persons in Africa. More than 1 million school-aged children and youth have been set adrift inside the country, ripped from their communities and their schools.

With the magnitude of the situation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, along with state officials and nongovernmental organizations, stepped in with the Education Crisis Response program.

Launched in 2014, the goal of the program is to expand access to quality and protective non-formal education (NFE) and alternative education opportunities for out- of-school children, ages 6-17 in three Nigerian states and reduce the burden on local schools already stretched thin by limited resources.

It is implemented by Creative Associates International (CreativeAssociatesInternational.com) and the International Rescue Committee (rescue.org), along with in-country NGOs and officials from the state and local governments.

Calling on the community

The pastor who oversees the Sabon Kaura school in Bauchi says his community welcomed the displaced children, many of whom arrived to his church.

“Because we had almost 500 [internally displaced persons], the church could not contain them, so a lot of people volunteered to take them home,” says Joshua Inaliya, Pastor of the Church of
the Brethren in Bauchi.

The key to the program is engaging those communities where the displaced populations live, says Helen John, Community Mobilization and NGO Coordinator for the program.

“We are relying on existing structures, and the community is one such structure because they are already on the ground,” John said.

With an estimated 90 percent of those displaced living with friends and relatives, local communities are best positioned to identify children most in need. The Education Crisis Response program coordinates with state government to determine where the largest IDP populations are located and then approaches leaders in those communities to get buy-in for the intervention.

“Our first point of call was the community heads,” John explains. “We went to…tell them the purpose of the project and what we intend to do in their communities. There is no way we can succeed if the community does not support our work.”

Creating local learning centers

Once the scope of the program has been explained, host community leaders can help program staff identify residents to act as Learning Facilitators for the children and select local sites to be used as non-formal learning centers.

The leader of the Gwallaga Village in Bauchi, Dandada Ahmadu, immediately embraced the project.

“Seeing the children and knowing that they stopped going to school, we began to consider what to do to get them back to school,” says Ahmadu. “So we started working together with USAID and [Bauchi’s] social welfare to support the children.”

In Gwallaga, the village chief arranged for two classrooms at a public school to be used as a “non-formal” learning center, which allowed the displaced children attend classes in the afternoon.

These classrooms use a curriculum of math and reading approved by Bauchi’s State Universal Basic Education Board, with the ultimate goal of reintegrating the children back into a formal learning environment.

“Despite the fact that they are not in their communities, they’re…still continuing with their education,” John said. “We intend that after nine months they mainstream into the formal schools.”

Building community coalitions

To ensure ongoing support, the Education Crisis Response program works closely with local community groups once the learning centers have been established.

Known as Community Coalitions, these groups work together to manage the activities at the learning centers, check attendance, pool resources to provide basic meals and supplies and support the facilitators.

Because they live locally, John points out, these coalitions are well positioned to provide support where it is needed most.

“The Community Coalition as a structure is instrumental in making things happen in our centers,” John said, and “are closer to the people, so they’ve been able to see what we cannot see at the grassroots.”

Looking forward

To ensure sustainability after the Nigeria Education Crises Response program ends, state officials have increased their support to the pilot learning centers, providing blackboards, books and other supplies, while also monitoring the lessons carried out as part of the non-formal curriculum.

That support, John underlined, will be critical to the long-term success of the program.

“I’m very sure with time the government should be able to take these centers so that they continue,” John says. “We…have internal displacements that are coming to our communities, so we should be able to respond to them because they are also children of Nigeria.”

As the insurgency continues across parts of Northern Nigeria, challenges remain. More children are displaced each day and many of those in the learning centers are still vulnerable as their families are repeatedly uprooted.

The Education Crises Response program provides stability by engaging the support of local communities and, with it, peace of mind that has been missing for many amidst the uncertainty of life in a conflict zone.

For Helen John, it is this peace of mind that makes her work with the program personal.

“In talking with the kids, because of what has happened, they are feeling as if all hope is lost,” John says. “But with this project they’ve been able to at least come to the realization that it is not the end for me. I can still make it in life.”

Produced for USAID by Creative Associates International. Written by David Snyder, with reporting by Michael J. Zamba and Ernest Akoma in Nigeria.