African Borderlands Community Development – Politics of Developing Nations (ABCD-PDN) Project

Niger, Yekuwa

Peasant farmers in Yekuwa may now rent-a-cart (along with bull), in order to haul equipment and crops to and from their distant fields. Their payment goes towards feeding the bull. Indigent farmers may borrow the bull-and-cart at no cost.

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Nigeria, Yardaje

Yardaje Youth Forum used their bull-and-cart, an ABCD project, to haul the equipment necessary to dig latrines and undertake other infrastructural projects in the village.

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Niger, Yekuwa

Modeled on the Heifer International program, graduate students decided that by providing goats for widows, they were helping the poorest of the poor. Goats provide milk and is a capital asset. When the goats reproduce, the kids go to widows who have not yet received them.

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Nigeria, Yardaje

Modeled on the Heifer International program, graduate students decided that by providing goats for widows, they were helping the poorest of the poor. Goats provide milk and is a capital asset. When the goats reproduce, the kids go to widows who have not yet received them.

View photos here.

Nigeria, Yardaje

PDN students decided on pit latrines as a way of encouraging girls to remain in school. Separate boys and girls latrines were built, thanks to ABCD, in each of Yardaje’s primary schools, as well as in its new primary health center.

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Niger, Yekuwa

In partnership with Friends of Niger, solar panels were added to the rooftops of the maternity ward in the clinic of Karam, Yekuwa. Among other benefits, electrification of the clinic enables midwives and women giving birth after sundown to no longer rely on flashlights and lanterns during the delivery.

Nigeria, Yardaje

Two PDN classes have decided each to sponsor one boy and one girl throughout their secondary school education. Mustafa Alassane, currently attending Yardaje Government Junior Secondary School, was the first boy to receive the ABCD scholarship; Naja’atu Shehu, currently attending Shargale Junior Secondary School is the first female recipient. More recently, Mustapha Siraja and Shema’u Salisu were selected and are now being sponsored by PDN through the completion of their secondary school education.

Scholarships defray costs of school uniforms, bedding, school supplies, meals, and transport.

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Niger, Yekuwa

In Yekuwa, schoolchildren often sit on the ground for want of benches, and their “classrooms” are straw huts. A major item, in short supply, are individual chalk tablets upon from which they learn to read and write. ABCD made one hundred of them available.

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Nigeria, Yardaje

Basic supplies like pens, pencils, chalk and notebooks are in short supply in Yardaje’s schools. ABCD helps make school ends meet.

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Niger, Yekuwa

Thanks to an ABCD grant, the tailor’s association of Yekuwa could purchase an embroidery sewing machine, adding value to the clothes that they tailor, market, and sell.

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Maintenance of infrastructure is a perennial problem in the development world.  Yardaje has several water pump wells in the village but some are breaking down.  Fall 2011 PDN students designated tools for water pump repair as part of their project.

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Niger, Yekuwa

This project was co-sponsored with the Friends of Niger (FON). To read a recent article about this project in the FON newsletter, click here and scroll to pages 4 and 5.

With the additional micro-loans provided by this project, members of Yekuwa’s women’s association make soap, henna, spices, snacks, baby clothes, and jewelry for sale. Northeastern students below are wearing some of the jewelry the village women sent as gifts. ABCD is in the process of getting the women’s association their own stall in the village market, thereby increasing their trade.

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