Nigeria April 2008 Report

Village Reports: Village Care Initiatives, Nigeria initiates community discussions throughout Nigeria. People come together and discuss issues in their communities. The community makes plans to address these issues. Below is a report on the implementation of various projects that arose from the initial community discussions.


AMANAWA

• All the registered kids in this community now attend school and some of their academic performance is encouraging.

• The adult education class has discovered some fast learners and they are now working on how to get certificates for them from the Local Education Authority. There is also need for a teachers and additional classroom to separate the fast learners from the slow ones.

• The committee is working on how to begin a computer-learning center. This according to them will be a channel through which jobless youths can be drawn closer for counseling, education, and empowerment besides the project can result into the first internet café in Amanawa community.

• The shop given by the church is still running the laundry services and they also sell sachet water

• The production of groundnut oil is now being retarded due to high cost of groundnut.

• The vegetable plantation too is in a bad shape due to lack of water.
  

BWONPE

Helping children:

• Registered kids and their families are visited regularly

• More soaps, books and learning materials are steadily being provided to these children.

• The families of the kids were recently challenged by the committee to provide beds even if it is a locally made one so that every child will sleep on a dry bed that above the floor. About 20 families have responded to this and were able to provide local beds, though most of them are yet to get mattresses, some have local mats on the beds. This I see is a step forward in achieving the outcomes for children.

• The committee that works on the children meet once in a month to look into better ways of helping these children.

• The committee members are happy doing their work and seeing the kid look cleaner.

• The children are being brought together once in a while for prayers (this was done last on 27/04/08)

Economic security:

• Potatoes seedling were purchased in preparation for planting season, which has already commenced.

• Members of this committee now have vegetable plantation out of which some of the product are sold to meet family needs.

• Some of the people have engaged themselves in irrigation farming which is yielding results.

• The committee is planning to own a poultry farm, after harvest time. This will be financed with the money realized from the harvest of the potatoes.

• One major threat and challenge is the availability of fertilizer during farming season, As some of the villagers will not mind their kids staying out of school for lack of fees, but they can spare any amount for fertilizer.

Nutrition:

• Most families are trying their best to eat and maintain balance diet especially with the aid of the vegetable plantations.

• They have had several awareness and the recent issue they are emphasizing is on the need to all cultivate beans alongside other crops which they discovered is a good source of protein.

• They have now zoned the monthly VCI awareness/lectures’ following the fact that it has not always been easy gathering all the people together.

Sanitation:

• A general sanitation now takes place every 1^st Saturday of the month. With 100% participation from the community.

• There is an order that all pigs be reared or kept in the out sketch of the village, if any is seen moving around it should be taken to the police. This is being adhered to and has improved the neatness of the community.

• The committee is now working on how to stop loitering the environment with pole tine bags

• Water drainages will soon be dug to prevent erosion in the community. A date has been fixed that all the community will come out for this work and all have agreed to it.

• All refuse dumps have been moved to farms where they also serve as manures

• Waste around houses have significantly reduced since the commencement of VCI programs in Bwonpe Community.

• The committee has gotten the backing of the village head that any one seen defecating around houses should be penalize.

Education:

• The holiday classes has now been extended to period of any industrial action e.g strikes, this is common in that setting.

• The classes holds thrice weekly and in the evenings.

• The teachers have been of great encouragement because, beside, volunteering their time and winning the confidence of the pupils, they squeeze out of their meager resources to provide some of the materials needed whenever they go out of stock.

Good behavior:

• Two (2) of the drug addicts the committee are working on who were also school dropouts are now back to school

• A mentally challenged person they were also taking care of now looks neat.

• The committee’s visit to a family lead to the reconciliation between a parent and their epileptic child whom they threw out because of his condition. Assistance of some drugs for the child was also give to the family by them.

• The committee talked with the village head on the side effect of alcohol particularly on the youth. We are waiting and hoping to get a positive response from him.

• In Bwonpe today cases of theft, rape, fighting, and all the likes has significantly reduced all credited to the work of VCI in the community.

BILIRI POSHIYA

Water:

• The community had an internal lunching on 4^th may 2008. To work on the source of drinking water. Already one of the two wells was hedged round so that as rain begins it would not flow into the well.

• The money raised in the lunching is to work on the second well and part of the money will be used to purchase school uniforms for their orphans.

Sanitation:

• This takes place fortnightly and this is indeed given the community a goodlook.

• they challenged nearby Fulany settlers on the importance of keeping their environment clean.

• They took the challenge and commenced tidying their houses. our frequent surprise visits made them to always ensure that their houses are clean at all times.

Economic security:

• The VCI shop in poshiya which operates shoemaking, tailoring and laundry services is progressing. The people involve are happy doing there jobs.

• The drycleaner is now enrolled into a school which he hopes to sustain with the stipends he gets from his job as well as provide for his family.

• The income from the business is usually divided into 3 parts one goes to the person working while the rest goes to the business and the community project of VCI.

Healthcare:

• Those in this committee made it a duty to visit sick people in the community to encourage and assist some of them with drugs, soaps and other necessities. Today most sick people in the community looks forward to their visitation.

Well behaved:

• Youths in the community church now dress more decent than they have always done before the commencement of the VCI program.

• Through the work of this committee work, a well-known notorious boy in the community has changed and now attends church, respects and help people around.

• Members of this committee are now being given responsibilities in the church because of their work and influence on the youths.

Education:

There is a significant improvement in the performance (in school) of the children who are part of the extra- moral classes.

G/ZALLA

• Beside their efforts in providing learning materials to students and desire for scholarship to their registered kids; This community has really being struggling to maintain other practices which they began at the take off of VCI program. The committee is really down in terms of finances, as such there is almost nothing more that has being added to there previous works on the children and the community. This supervision visit challenged them and they affirmatively said they are going to revive their work from sanitation to economic security.

T/MAGAJIYA

Registered children:

• The new VCI committee has been given clothes (fairly used), soaps, detergents, grains (food), toothpaste, brushes etc to the kids as their needs have always being.

Sanitation:

• They have collectively cleaned all churches and the community’s cemetery and even planted flowers.

Education:

• some Youth Corp. members recently posted to this community volunteered to take final year students extra lessons as they prepare for exams alongside dropouts who are have decided to return to school.

• The Local Education Authority has boosted their adult education class by given them trained teachers.

• A member of the VCI committee has taken a challenge of buying 2 plots of land where he intends building a school that all orphans will study freely.

Sanitation:

• Pigs have been completely stopped from moving about in the community.

Nutrition:

• The economic trees planted are growing up well and some of the farmers have made fence round their plantation.

BAGUSA

Help:

Two children are being helped in this community. The committee where able to;

• Enrolling them in school

• Sow school uniforms for them

• The VCI committee members in this community are just two and currently one is sick and even had a surgical operation.

Economic security:

• Three women in this community who could not even say anything during the open space, silently took up the challenge of going into petty trading; selling yam, soft drinks and soup ingredients.

• They are now able to at assist their husbands in providing for the family and also take care of some their personal needs.

T/WAKILI

Children:

• The VCI committee in this community made an attempt to adopt some children of which only 1 fall within the age-bracket required, this is because of the committees’ initial understanding of adopting and helping children, which I personally took time during the supervision to explain. I later asked them to adopt and help more vulnerable children in the community.

• This community however tried in some of the practices.

Economic security:

• They have a class organized on fish and poultry farming that is going on currently.

• Most people in the community are engaged in vegetable plantation.

• Some have sterted foundation of poultry farming by securing places and constructing cages.

• Some of the women in this community who were fully dependent on their husbands have started petty trading to also support the home.

Sanitation:

• General sanitation holds every last Saturday of the month in the community

• Most compounds now have toilets.

• People have improved on their sources of drinking water.

Nutrition:

• Most families have now made fruits and vegetables a daily necessity.

Education:

• They are running an extra moral class for primary school pupils, which hold thrice weekly though not many kids attend.

• More children in the community are enrolled in school due to the lessons on the outcomes and practices.

KABA

Education:

• -An extra moral class holds in the community, but only primary pupils attend.

Help:

• This community at the open space decided to help widows, widowers, orphans and destitute on their own terms. An interesting thing about this community is that the head was fully part of the training and the community is Islam dominated, with about 90%.

• All those who made one commitment or the other were faithful in helping those in need.

• During my supervision, a Local VCI committee was instituted. With the church pastor as the chairman.

• This community however was excellent in the practice of sanitation which they do bi-weekly, keeping their surroundings clean.