Fleeing from protracted insurgency, ethnic conflicts, and the farmer and herder’s crisis, many displaced families from northeast Nigeria found safety in Malabu, Fufore Local Government Area (LGA) in Adamawa state. While the local community offered them farmlands to cultivate, they could barely sustain their family, resulting in children dropping out of school to support the family with chores, farming, and other livelihoods.

Joy, nine–year–old, was among those children. Her father got farmland to cultivate crops, but it was only enough for the survival of the family and did not produce enough to sell and thus support Joy’s school fees.

To improve access to education for children and respond to the needs of their families to have a sustainable source of income, JRS started a new programme in Malabu with support from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

As soon as Joy’s parents heard about the Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP), they immediately enrolled her. The programme helps out-of-school children in transitioning back into the formal education system. At the same time, it engages their family in income-generating activities and supports them with start-up packs such as agro-inputs and small business equipment to ensure the retention of the children in formal school.

When ALP started in Malabu, Joy’s parents were elated that she could study and start catching up on where she left. In July 2024, Joy successfully completed the programme and was transitioned into Central Primary School, Malabu. JRS provided her with learning kits and school uniforms, and her school fees were also paid for a period of four years.

Her parents received farming inputs, including, fertilisers, knapsack sprayers, and herbicides to help improve their livelihoods and continue supporting Joy and her siblings in school. Joy’s mother, for example, was involved in income-generating training.

“My wife was trained on how to improve our farming and was given fertilisers, sprayer, and herbicide, these are things we cannot afford because of our displacement, I wish that what I benefited from JRS can be benefitted by other families too,” comments Joy’s father who has now restored his hope for a better life for his daughter Joy, and her other siblings.