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EZRA MILLSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY

Recovering from Boko Haram

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  • October 2018, Biu, Nigeria. Fatima, 17, in her family's home. She started her own business selling sugar. She was motivated to start after learning about savings and money management in Mercy Corps’ I-SING program, which provides safe spaces, livelihood grants and vocational training to vulnerable youth in Boko Haram affected communities in Nigeria.Now she sells in two locations — her home and her father’s retail shop — and saves the income between a home bank and the Mercy Corps-facilitated savings group (VSLA) where she is a member. When the VSLA pays out next month, she is excited to build her business even more. Even though her family is struggling to meet their needs, Fatima is determined to finish school and be self-sufficient, believing independent women are the key to development. She wants to be a midwife when she is older, so she can help women more.
  • Suwaiba Yakubu Adam (18, brown hijab) teaches a group of 25 girls from her community who she identified and recruited herself. Using the same curriculum she learned from Mercy Corps, she guides lessons in everything from financial literacy to sexual health, believing sharing of this knowledge can be transformative for them. Suwaiba has been through a great deal in her 18 years: the death of both her parents, harassment by local gangs, attacks by Boko Haram. Yet she perseveres, stoic and determined, crediting her parents for instilling in her a desire to help people. After participating in Mercy Corps’ girls group in her community — part of the I-SING program, which provides life and vocational skills to vulnerable youth in Boko Haram-affected areas — Suwaiba felt so strongly that more girls should have the opportunity that she started leading her own group, independent of the Mercy Corps program.With the Boko Haram crisis behind her, she’s continuing to pursue to her own ambitions too: she wants to complete school and become a pharmacist, because it’s a way to serve her community.
  • Jauny Danyaro Mary cooks vegetables in front of her home. She fled a Boko Haram attack in her village four years ago — the group came in the middle of the night, forcing her and her family to run with whatever they were wearing and little else. Her father was shot and killed in the attack; Mary made it to Biu, but her life has been difficult since. Upon arriving, she took in six orphans whose parents had either been killed or could no longer care for them, worrying they wouldn’t have a future if she didn’t. Mary has four biological children as well (one of whom recently passed away), and has struggled immensely to feed them with what she can grow and cultivate herself on land she pays to rent. Without an income, she says she is also at risk of losing their shelter, which she must pay rent on soon. Mary received emergency food support from Mercy Corps, which fed them for about 10 months, and has since received a livelihood grant as part of the early recovery work implemented as security has improved in Biu. Mary purchased bulk cereals — rice, millet, other grains — to sell from her home in smaller quantities, which she now does one day a week, when she is not at the farm, to earn income. The money helps her purchase food for the children — but the future is still uncertain, and she worries she won’t be able to keep a shelter over their heads.
  • In the “garrison” town of Dikwa, where daily life is an excruciating waiting game. Boko Haram is still active in this area in the very northeast corner of Nigeria, and the military can currently only offer safety within the town’s borders. So around 7,000 IDPs have sheltered here, receiving relative security that comes at the cost of their ability to farm and move freely, rendering them almost completely dependent on aid and able to do little more than watch and wait until peace returns enough that they can return home or otherwise rebuild. People’s ability to meet their basic needs is extremely limited, with almost no income opportunities and many risking their lives to travel to the bush to collect firewood just so they can cook food for their families.
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  • Moses (striped shirt), a 45 year-old fisherman, and his son Paul, 25, fish on a slow, muddy river near their home.As a lifelong fisherman, Moses depends on the water to provide food and income for his family. But in an agricultural community where nearly everyone relies on natural resources, competition over land and water can cause tension and even conflict. Fisherman like Moses are often at odds with pastoralists, who bring their animals to the water and can cause contamination. Conflict between farmers and herders, largely over competition natural resources like land and water, has been ongoing for decades in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” region, where Tunga is, but it has recently been exacerbated by population growth and the increasing effects of climate change. Across the region, thousands have been killed and more than 300,000 have reportedly been displaced by violence and reprisal attacks this year. Mercy Corps is doing peacebuilding work in the Middle Belt, helping both sides learn conflict-management skills and providing opportunities for peaceful dialogue. Moses participated in a conflict prevention forum — a facilitated dialogue between differing groups that offers a chance for everyone to voice their concerns — and a conflict management training that taught community members how to peacefully work through disagreements. Since then he has mediated several conflicts in his community and has seen even households begin to live more peacefully.
  • Moses (striped shirt), a 45 year-old fisherman, and his son Paul, 25, fish on a slow, muddy river near their home.As a lifelong fisherman, Moses depends on the water to provide food and income for his family. But in an agricultural community where nearly everyone relies on natural resources, competition over land and water can cause tension and even conflict. Fisherman like Moses are often at odds with pastoralists, who bring their animals to the water and can cause contamination. Conflict between farmers and herders, largely over competition natural resources like land and water, has been ongoing for decades in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” region, where Tunga is, but it has recently been exacerbated by population growth and the increasing effects of climate change. Across the region, thousands have been killed and more than 300,000 have reportedly been displaced by violence and reprisal attacks this year. Mercy Corps is doing peacebuilding work in the Middle Belt, helping both sides learn conflict-management skills and providing opportunities for peaceful dialogue. Moses participated in a conflict prevention forum — a facilitated dialogue between differing groups that offers a chance for everyone to voice their concerns — and a conflict management training that taught community members how to peacefully work through disagreements. Since then he has mediated several conflicts in his community and has seen even households begin to live more peacefully.
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