Lafiya Sarari Initiative
Department
Education
Duration
2017 – present
Funder
Catena Foundation
Location (s)
Maiduguri, Nigeria
About Project
In 2017, the Boko Haram insurgents were already winning a 5 year long war targeted at discrediting the value of western education and radicalising the population of youth against education. Additionally, they had successfully kidnapped over 200 school girls in Chibok, causing a weariness in the minds of families and communities, making them question the importance of education when the lives of their daughters are at stake.
Without arguing the legitimacy of this fear and the concerns of the communities, Neem Foundation created a safe learning space and gave it a fitting name “Lafiya Sarari” which translates to Assured Wellness – a nurturing space dedicated to restoring girls to a sense of safety and tranquillity that the conflict had disrupted. Lafiya Sarari in 7 years has enrolled a total of 100 girls who were direct victims of the insurgency, altering the trajectory of their lives entirely through education.
In 2024, the first set of 31 girls graduated from the Secondary Education provided at Lafiya Sarari and are on their way to university, to reach the pinnacle of their educational pursuits and seek the future that is the right of every Nigerian girl.
Beyond the classroom…
What parents and beneficiaries have highlighted is the significant ways that beneficiaries are cascading learning beyond the walls of Lafiya Sarari, making families more encouraged to seek education for their wards.
What Beneficiaries Say
“I am a member of faith class, I am so proud of this school because before I came here I couldn’t read, I wasn’t able to speak English but now thank God, I am able to teach my younger ones at home”.
“The success we have achieved in the community is that they have gathered little children whose parents don’t know the importance of education. They put together the children, those who are even going to the school are teaching the children so because they are teaching the children, they saw it and the ones who have the capability they took their children to school in Santakori close to us. Now because of this thing they did, children that used to play or carry load have reduced largely because of this project. They have seen it, children have gone and come, and they speak English, they talk and that’s why some took it upon themselves to enrol their children ”.
