From Student to Teacher: Fauziya's Inspiring Journey of Empowering Out-of-School Girls
A former student is back to her UNICEF-supported school in northeast Nigeria, as a teacher for schoolgirls affected by conflict.
Fauziya Mohammed is familiar with the Muna Garage IDP Camp School, where she teaches displaced children.
When Fauziya Mohammed, a teacher at the Muna Garage IDP Camp School in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, looks at her students, she feels a unique connection.
"I was a student here six years ago. My family and I were forced to leave Marte. The present headteacher was our headteacher at the time. The school has remained largely unchanged, although the students have changed. My classroom setting always reminds me of my time here at this school,"
After two years at the UNICEF-supported school, Fauziya moved to Muna Kolori Primary School and then to Sanda Kyarimi Secondary School in a nearby community, where she excelled in her final secondary school examination. That wasn't all. The young lady, who aspires to be a doctor, attended Ramat Polytechnic in Maiduguri and earned a diploma in nutrition and dietetics.
The teacher credits the camp school's study programme for helping her complete her education.
"I attended school in Marte. However, I dropped out of school after my family fled to Maiduguri due to armed conflict for several months. I was already in my second year of junior high school at Marte. When we arrived at this camp, I had been out of school for about six months before the school opened. That offered my mother the opportunity to register me under the guidance of Mallam Fali Shaibu, our headmaster," she says.
The Muna Garage IDP Camp school, established in 2015 by UNICEF in partnership with the state government, provides a literacy and numeracy programme for children affected by conflict.
In 2019, UNICEF started supporting the school through funding from Education Cannot Wait (ECW), recruiting 16 volunteer teachers in addition to the five government-provided teachers. The ECW funds also assisted in the provision of textbooks and writing materials for students and teachers.
The support continued in 2020, when radio learning sessions were introduced to keep teaching and learning going during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For Fauziya, the teacher, time flies. But it also crawls. While she continues to live in a shelter in the Zone D section of the camp, she aspires to be a doctor so that she can help her immediate community.
"I have 33 girls in the three classes that I teach. They've all become my friends and younger sisters. Some of them are nervous about speaking in class, but they usually stop by my shelter after school to ask questions. "One of them wants to be an engineer, but many of them want to be teachers," she says.
Fauziya says her job gives her the opportunity to mentor younger girls affected by displacement.
"I was their age once, and I know what they are going through right now. I consider myself fortunate to be both a teacher and a mentor to them. It is a unique opportunity, and I counsel them a lot,"
