At the new Kpansia market in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State in southern Nigeria, it is hard not to notice the many out-of-school children who, from dawn to dusk, paddle a canoe in search of fish, wander, often barefoot, between the stalls of traders or play with old tyres.
Babawale Babafemi, a 27-year-old trader, also noticed them in 2021, when he moved from Lagos to Yenagoa. “They are very easy to identify. I see them every day from Monday to Friday. They do not go to school,” he told this newspaper.
And she quickly came up with the idea of starting a reading group. “I persuade them to take me to see their families. When I ask parents or relatives why their children don’t go to school, they tell me that there is no money, so I ask them for permission to bring their children to my reading club on weekends,” says Babafemi.
He built a wooden library covered by a yellow tarp and filled it with an assortment of books for children and adults that he inherited when his father died and others donated by people. He named it the “Yellow House Library.”
Every weekend, using personal funds and money raised on social media, Babafemi pays for some of the children’s transport tickets and treats them to refreshments to encourage them to attend the book club. To create a reading habit, he also lends the children books to take home and discuss the following week. “My father was a school principal. He was a man who loved to read. When he died, I inherited his books,” says Babafemi.
According to Unicef, although primary education is officially free and compulsory, Some 10.5 million children in the country between the ages of 5 and 14 are not in school. Only 61% of children aged 6 to 11 attend primary school regularly, and only 35.6% of children aged 36 to 59 months receive pre-school education. In the north of the country, the picture is even more bleak, with a net attendance rate of 53%. “Reintroducing out-of-school children to education poses an enormous challenge,” says the UN agency.
“When I was in Grade 6 in 2020, I stopped going to school. I was not happy with the situation, but I had to because my parents could not pay for my education,” said Marvelous Akumogbia, 12, one of the children wandering around the market. His parents are fishermen and could not afford the $4.40 (€3.96) school fees and other expenses at his previous school, so they asked him to drop out and go fishing with them, despite the boy’s interest in learning.
In March this year, the map of all Nigerian states published by the digital media The Cable indicated that 7.4% of children between 6 and 15 years old were out of school in Bayelsa.
When I ask parents or relatives why their children do not go to school, they tell me that there is no money to send them.
Babawale Babafemi, creator of the library
Back to school
Recently, the library founder and three volunteers working with him went a step further and decided to prepare the children for the school entrance or re-entry exam. Akumogbia, who frequented the library for months, has been able to re-enroll in school after obtaining excellent results in the exams.
The story of 10-year-old Rejoice Ekiza is similar to that of Akumogbia. “I am a member of the library. I joined a year ago, and what they taught me there helped me in the entrance exam,” says the boy, happy after scoring 30 out of 40 points in this entrance exam. Ekiza had stopped attending school in 2021 because his family could not afford the $2.50 (€2.25) tuition fee.
Since 2021, more than 200 children from the city have attended the library and 40 have been able to re-enroll in school thanks to the financial support of donors and their personal efforts.
“In sub-Saharan Africa, governments should assess the need for school provision and intervene to fund it. They can also make basic education compulsory and, failing that, consider suing parents,” suggests Charles Oyibo of Niger Delta University in Bayelsa State.
Every weekend, Babafemi takes charge of the English class, while one of the three volunteers teaches Maths and the other two focus on calligraphy and reading. “At first, I didn’t see any improvement in the children. They had been out of school for a long time and learning was strange to them. We had to wait months,” she says.
At first, I didn’t see any improvement in the children. They had been out of school for a long time and learning was strange to them. It took months.
Babawale Babafemi, creator of the library
Faced with limited resources, Babafemi says that the children suggested the idea of selling water in bags to help finance the project, but he refused. “They have already done all kinds of jobs to stay afloat. I know, for example, some teenagers in the market who grind pepper or carry loads in exchange for a stipend,” he explains.
The library is also affected by the heavy rains, which have destroyed many books. “Our big challenge is to find a way to finance ourselves. So far, we have not been able to replace the books we have lost due to the floods, let alone expand our library to accommodate more children and get them to re-enrol in school,” concludes Babafemi.
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