Recently, a foundation, known as the Almajiri-to-Tech Foundation, transformed 21 street-roaming children in northern part of Nigeria, known as Almajiri children, with technology skills in six months. The plan is to graduate more of the over 30 million street children to further drive Nigeria’s digital transformation agenda, writes Emma Okonji
If 21 children could be transformed in six months, what could happen to over 30 million on the streets? This question lingered throughout the graduation ceremony of the Almajairi’s as speakers, policymakers, religious leaders and education advocates reflected on what they had witnessed. Before them sat young boys and girls who, only months earlier, had little or no formal education in English Language but today, confidently demonstrate skills many university graduates have never acquired, courtesy of the foundation that trained them on basic technology skills.
For years, they were known only by what they lacked. They lacked homes, formal education and opportunities. To millions of Nigerians, they were simply just the Almajiri children roaming the streets with bowls in their hands, and surviving on alms. However, those same hands that once stretched out for survival now hold screwdrivers, assemble computers, repair electronic devices, and build drones. The applause that filled the hall was not merely for 21 graduates receiving certificates, it was also for a new possibility and a future many had never imagined, a future where the Almajiri child is no longer defined by poverty, but by potential.
