How are mothers fighting to give their children access to education?

Not everyone has the same chance to access education. As this fundamental right is still not guaranteed to everyone around the world, nine women in Chibok, Nigeria, are fighting to send their children to school. They are doing so through entrepreneurship to pay school fees and support their families.

In Nigeria, the mothers of Chibock have begun to move from farming to factory work, in an effort to build a better future for their children and provide them with access to education, which remains costly. By cultivating peanuts at home and processing them into peanut butter, these women can market their product under the name “the New Mothers of Chibok”, through a partnership with Arjena Foods and Zenfix Nigeria.

This project was created in response to the mass kidnappings carried out by Boko Haram, which abducted many young girls. It aims to help mothers to support themselves and their families, while also enabling them to send their children to school. This represents a major challenge, as Boko Haram is strongly opposed to Western education.

Mothers say they are willing to devote all their financial resources to their children’s education. For instance, Maryam Ali Maiyanga states that it will prevent her children from following dangerous paths, such as that of his father, who is a Boko Haram fighter. Through entrepreneurship, particularly the opening of two factories and the expansion of sales into urban areas, these women can finance better educational opportunities for their families. This also provides them with a stable, fair income while increasing the value of their work.

This example shows that access to education remains a difficult path for many African children and that not everyone has equal access to entrepreneurial opportunities. That is why Bumuntu aims to implement a sponsorship program to cover children’s school and related expenses for the year.

Through the testimony of the women of Chibok, we can observe that entrepreneurship can play a key role in improving access to education. In the future, Bumuntu also hopes to provide microcredit solutions that enable individuals to support both their families and their children’s education, as these two issues are deeply interconnected.

Post by Aaliyah