Support female survivors of Boko Haram in Nigeria

Dear friends,

International Alert Nigeria has been working with youths to build their peacebuilding, conflict sensitivity, conflict resolution, facilitation and mediation skills to increase social cohesion and reintegration of survivors of abduction and sexual violence from armed groups.

Together with our partner, Taimako Community Development Initiative (TCDI), this month we have facilitated 89 youth dialogue sessions with 245 participants (130 male, 115 female). In these sessions, participants discussed conflict issues in their local context such as rape and stigmitisation of survivors, land disputes between communities, drug use by idle youths and increases in school drop-outs due to poverty and stigma especially towards girls. The dialogue sessions were led by youths trained as peace mentors who will continue to work with youth groups to sentisise communities and raise awareness of the issues youth and survivors of Boko Haram face by amplifying their voices.

In one youth dialogue session, participants identified a local conflict issue between neighbouring communities regarding a refuse site. The conflict escalated to violence when youths from one community confronted youths from the other group to demand they stop dumping as it had blocked water ways and led to flooding and erosion.

The project team responded by organising dialogue sessions and youth initiatives in both communities. We ran community sensitisation campaigns on peacebuilding and resilience building and youths from both communities worked together on a sanitation initiative to resolve the long-term grievance between them. They agreed to collectively evacuate the pile of refuse waste to restore water ways and create a different dumping site in a more preferred location.

The team succeeded in reconciling the two communities and successfully relocated the refuse dumping site to a safer and accessible location for both communities with consent of traditional and youth leaders. After the community clean up, TCDI’s WASH team supported by disinfecting the communities of cholera and distributing aqua tabs.

Thanks to your support, vulnerable youths are learning to identify and resolve the root causes of conflict in their communities while also ensuring that victims of Boko Haram violence reintegrate with their families and feel safe and valued in their communities.

On behalf of the whole team at International Alert - thank you.

Yours in peace,

Ollie