Nigeria: October 2007

Phillips Elisha, Nigeria Director
Village Care International
October 22, 2007

1. Tungan Magajiya:
The training has been conducted by the Davids sometime last year. The program right now is focused on sanitation, nutrition and helping children be in school. This is the first village care village in Nigeria but the growth here is slow. They have also started a library with the hope of creating a reading culture among the children. We are going to have a re-training of this community next month.

2. Amanawa.
The training has been conducted here in December last year. A few programs are going on. (a) Classes are going on both for adults and children. For adults it is targeted for those who never went to school. This program helps them to acquire literacy so as to be informed on ways they could help their families. (b) the nutrition group has made a vegetable garden to cater for the nutritional needs of their community. (c) The economic security group has started up small scale businesses for individuals so as to help them help members of their families. (d) The educational committee provides scholarship for children and youths who could not go to school for lack of scholarship (e) The sanitation group are all over keeping the village environment clean. (f) Trees are planted to provide the nutritional demands of the village. (g) 20 children are registered and efforts are being made to help these children.

3. Gidan Zalla;
The training has also been conducted here. There appears to be a community wide acceptance of VC program. Children are being helped to succeed in school by providing educational materials and scholarships. The sanitation group is perhaps the best group as this is what causes awareness to the village. It is what brought the whole village together, Muslim and Christian alike. David witnessed most of these.

4. Billiri ( Poshiya);
Training here has been conducted too. There appears to be a fast reception of all the programs. Orphans and widows are being helped especially those who are HIV positive. Classes are being organized for those who are not literate and for those children and youths to augment for deficiencies in their various schools. Similarly, families are helping each clean their homes and support them in their domestic difficulties. A woman confessed here that, through VC she has learnt what it means to LOVE her neighbor, a thing she never considered before. They are also helping out in helping children not to go into addictions and helping those who are already addicted to come out of it. They have also started laundry and many other petty businesses to help each member of the community become economically secure and become contributing members of their families. The have also carried two water projects. David have pictures of this.

5. Abuja
Abuja is actually the name for VC program in a cluster of villages in suburban Abuja. These villages now number 5, namely; Guidna, Kagini, Kabba, Bagusa and Tungan Wakili. A training was conducted for all the villages but there is a need for individual trainings of the communities and this begins from the 12th of next month. Not much has been done here apart from awareness. But the church is helping out in medical facilities and scholarship for children. The next training will blow the program to a good proportion.

6. Sokoto.
A rather complex community, training has been conducted here. But this training was conducted in a police barrack where most families here may be transferred. However, a few of the community members are helping families become economically secure so as to cater for their own families.

All these communities are slated for a retraining this month and next. One has already been conducted, By December, we should be able to have a comprehensive update on all the villages, including pictures. If there are specific questions please let me know.