How CBI's Education programme reopened a future for one displaced 8-year-old.
Fatima was six years old when conflict swept through her village in Borno State. Her school — a two-room block building on the edge of the market — was shuttered within days. Her family fled. For two years, she lived in a displacement camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri with her mother and four siblings, watching other children play while the days passed without learning, without books, without the rhythm of school.
When CBI's Education in Emergencies team set up a Temporary Learning Space inside the camp in early 2023, Fatima was among the first children enrolled. She was placed in a catch-up class designed to help out-of-school children recover foundational literacy and numeracy skills. Within three months, her teacher — a community volunteer trained by CBI — reported that Fatima could read simple sentences and solve basic arithmetic with growing confidence.
"Before CBI came, I had not been to school for two years. Now I go every day, and I can read," Fatima told our team during a monitoring visit in October. She clutched a notebook — one of 2,400 distributed by CBI this quarter — with the kind of care that told us she knew exactly what it was worth.
In 2024, CBI's Education programme supported 12,000+ children like Fatima across 10 states. We trained 340 teachers in inclusive pedagogy, established 18 child-friendly learning spaces, and distributed over 14,000 sets of teaching and learning materials. For every Fatima, there are thousands of stories we haven't told yet. We are committed to continuing until every child is back in a safe classroom.