Many years ago, my father came to Kaduna as an Almajiri child. The odds were stacked against him, there was no way he wouldn't live all his life on the streets. Unlike many of his peers, he was able to ultimately craft a life for himself and start a family. This story is not about my father, but of the ancient system of the Almajiri.

I grew up in a community called Rigasa in Kaduna state, and if you know anything about this place, you would know it is a community with a strong reputation for harboring touts and school dropouts. In my family, everybody drops out at some point, I was however by some stroke of luck able to complete my education. Growing up, we always had Almajiri children around, doing our dishes for a plate of food, doing the laundry and cleaning the premises of the house. At first, this never really bothered me, it never seemed out of place. As time went by, I started to wonder if this was the fate these children will be subject to.

Throughout my years in school, questions about the Almajiri children always bugged my mind. Even though my father was a reference of some sort, I was curious to know who these children are, where they are from and who is responsible for their being here. Why are they not in school like me or have no family to be with? Even as some of my immediate cousins and nephews were in other states being Almajiri children, the answers I sought seemed unreachable. I soon became consumed with answering these questions I had.

 To find the answers to these questions, a proper understanding of the Almajiri system is necessary.

The Almajiri system is an ancient islamic education system characterized by its nomadic nature. Nomadic in the sense that the early islamic scholars moved from one place to another. There was a general lack of proper islamic knowledge in the early days, and the system for getting islamic knowledge was such that young boys of mostly Hausa and Fulani descent were sent to wherever knowledgeable scholars were located. For example, a family in some suburb in Katsina would send their boy(s) to a place like Kano where there is a scholar to acquire proper islamic knowledge. This act gave birth to what is known today as the Almajiri system (Read more on the Almajiri system in this Unicef Article: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/stories/children-adjust-life-outside-nigerias-almajiri-system).

In the ancient times, life was not so difficult for the Almajiri child. They’d usually beg for food to eat and take care of themselves, also people in the communities they are in would usually cater for them. Today, the system is seen more as a traditional practice than an actual practice of seeking religious knowledge. I say this because islamic religious knowledge is everywhere, there are scholars in every town, every village and in every suburb. It is a practice now common with poor people who send their children away as a form of tradition, I mean a lot of factors play into why this still happens.

So, the Almajiri children you see today in Northern Nigeria and in some parts of Southern Nigeria are children who have been sent from their villages, to live with their teachers known as the Alaramas, who are responsible for taking care of them for the period of tutelage. However, due to the nature of the system and the times we are in, life is hard economically. Not everybody is able to commit to children that are not theirs and as such these children are left on their own. The responsibility of the Mallam (the Alarama) who is like a teacher or guardian, is to teach them and most times provide them with shelter. This shelter usually takes the form of uncompleted buildings, provided it has a roof over it. The Alaramas seek permission from the owners to use the premises to house the children pending its completion. These houses have no doors, windows, bathrooms but it offers them the needed shelter from which they go out daily, beg for food for sustenance, and then return to their primary point of activity; sitting with the Alaramas to learn the Qur’an.

These children, like my father, basically miss the opportunity to grow up in families, acquire formal education, and most of them end up as “street children”. Although they learn to read and write in Arabic, Nigeria is not primarily an arabic-speaking country, and thus they are unable to understand English. They cannot read and write in English or perform basic arithmetic. A few of them grow old enough to set up their own schools/centers and also receive children from other towns and villages since they have become knowledgeable to teach the Qur’an.

I was the first graduate from my entire family, and it came with a lot of expectation, responsibility and pressure. After graduating, I took to teaching in a college of health. I find joy in teaching as it's an opportunity to leave an impact on the lives of others. The young men and women in the community where this college was situated had a lot of expectations for their future and I was positioned there as a guide. I then moved on to teach in a primary school, which I found even more rewarding. I felt one of the greatest joys in my life when the class moved from not more than three people able to read to almost the entire class being able to read and comprehend in the span of a year. There was however some inner conflict within me, I needed to do something for my dear community, Rigasa. 

At this time, the community had improved from what it was known for, as the urbanization in Kaduna state was touching every part of the state. However, something was still missing to me.

A part of my exposure had come through debating, where I have had to represent my state and country in international debating competitions. In a conversation with one of my friends from my international debating community in Hong Kong, it hit me that Rigasa needed a library. She was looking for a way to give back to her community and I thought to myself, I had never encountered a library until I got into the university. I thought about the many children in Rigasa who would also suffer this fate. Libraries have been important throughout history in shaping individuals and communities, and I thought to myself maybe a library is what Rigasa needs.

I set out to build the first ever library in Rigasa, conducted some research to understand the extent of the need for a library. My research showed it was very important and long overdue as more children were willing to read but had limited access to books. I put together a team of 13 individuals; including old secondary and university colleagues to embark on this mission. We engaged the government and the various stakeholders in trying to achieve this goal. After nearly a year of effort, we were faced with a harsh reality that building a library in Rigasa was a monumental challenge. A few of us gave up, it was understandable to do so but my love for Rigasa could not allow me to. I and a few others who stuck around began to ponder alternative ways to make a change. We soon realized that providing textbooks and basic school supplies was critical in keeping the children in school, especially those attending primary school. The mission to solve this problem would birth Project Books4All, and the work I now do with Almajiri kids.

When we recognized this problem, we decided to have a fundraiser among our circle of friends. The funds we raised were channeled to purchasing bundles of exercise books and school supplies to donate to schools/children in need. We initially named this “Education for all”, and planned to hold these fundraising events every 5 months with most of the funds coming from our immediate friends who donated 1,000 naira (about a dollar), some 2,000 naira (about 2 dollars)  and so on. We would then buy these notebooks in bundles, and identify schools having the highest number of students lacking these supplies as beneficiaries. It felt rewarding to give back to society this way.

Soon enough we realized we could do more with what we had started and this led us to transform our efforts into a community service initiative called “Project Books4All”.

I still always thought about the Almajiri kids, and during one of the meetings as an initiative, someone brought up the question of what we could do to ensure they get some formal education. We had the desire to help, but were confronted with challenges such as the reluctance of the children to attend school, and the need for the consent of the parents who were often unreachable.

The only feasible option left was to provide foundational literacy for them in Hausa and English Language; at least this would enable them to read and write. They already had Arabic literacy and this was not to replace that but to complement it, making them more empowered and open to recognizing the opportunities that await them in life.

This approach has enabled us to establish centers with over 200 children enrolled. In my search for a model that would be effective, I came across a program called "Teaching at the Right Level" which aligned with our goal of teaching children how to read. I attended the program's training and implemented the methods. For over a year now, we have been teaching these Almajiri children, continually adapting our approach to their unique circumstances.

For me, every one of these children matters and this is the journey I have been on.