Community Engagement Abuja
A REPORT ON THE UNIVERSITY OF MAIDUGURI SDG STUDY VISIT
DATE: 9TH – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2021
LOCATION: GOALS COMMUNITY CENTRE GWAGWALADA FCT.
Report by Dr Naomi Andrew Haruna and Mr Semiye Micheals
Background
The SDG Graduate School of Performing Sustainability: Cultures and Development in West Africa in collaboration with the Global Goals Community Center hosted and successfully concluded a two day (9th-10th September 2021) innovative activity aimed at introducing the students of the graduate school to outdoor and practical integrated research patterns that address community and development issues. The collaboration including the SDG School at the University of Maiduguri is fully funded by the DAAD an organization that provides scholarships to students around the world from the BMZ. The DAAD is currently funding a project focused on the development of communities and capacity building of people across the world with a specific target on advancing the SDG goals as defined by the UN. The program, in line with the aims and objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, attempted to afford the students an opportunity for field application of their ongoing interdisciplinary researches. The activity exposed the participants to models of transforming thesis literature and classroom solutions in Nigeria into real practical problem-solving avenues through performance, activism, creative arts, and culture. In light of this, the students were engaged in community-focused group discussion in Kwali and Piako communities, live discussion sessions with experts such as Oluwasemiye Michael, Hamzat Lawal, and Oluwakemi Ann Areola on advocacy, activism, and creativity. Students were also exposed to documentary films on community champions whose strides changed their communities and the challenges faced by those communities. However, the central focus of the collaborative engagement included but was not limited to:
- Ensuring that the participants enjoyed a full experience on field application of the SDGs and how they affect the communities.
- Promoting the inter-relationship between research and problem-solving.
- Identifying ways of improvement as it borders on research and action in a manner that reflects realities in our communities and as well develops a capacity-building mechanism for the participants.
Significance of the Collaboration
Theory and practice are two vital sides of a coin that play very important roles in the development of a society. Identifying the link between the two becomes necessary. However, within academia, the alignment of these two parties has largely remained unbalanced and under-explored. The two-day visit by 12 postgraduate (PhD and MA) students from the University of Maiduguri Centre for the Study and Promotion of Cultural Sustainability (CSPCS) to The Global Community Center Gwagwalada, Abuja is a major step in obtaining the much-desired balance between theory and practice especially in terms of addressing social-cultural issues. The activity focused on providing community-based solutions to emerging problems within communities. The Dean initiative served as a gateway through which the students experienced various communities, identified their problems, challenges and proffered possible solutions. This, in many ways, widened the students’ researching horizons on how to address immediate problems within their environment but also highlighted a way of giving life to their ongoing research areas.
The need for partnerships between academia and non-governmental organizations cannot be overemphasized as it not only provides a path for purposive research and implementation but also provides a foray for the achievement of sustainable development from a human perspective. The collaboration between the SDG Graduate School of Performing Sustainability; Cultures and Development in West Africa, University of Maiduguri, and Global Goals Community Center(GGCC) is a pivotal partnership that is aimed at revolutionizing the Nigerian education system and edging it towards a hands-on problem-solving agenda. Therefore, in line with the enshrined objectives of the partnering institutions, this collaboration equipped the set of interdisciplinary graduate students with initiative and innovative approach towards attaining a balanced and effective theory-practice integrated research for the achievement of sustainable development goals through the cultural and creative arts.
Activities
The Global Goals Community Center in Abuja hosted 12 Post graduate students and two coordinators from the Graduate School for two days to engage in insightful activities for mental and capacity building. During this period, the students participated in community engagement, identifying community challenges and proffering possible solutions among others.
On the morning of the first day (9th Sept. 2021), the students were divided into two teams: Team Education for Girls (SDG Goal 4) and Team Climate Change and Food Security (Goal 13 and 2). The teams embarked on community-focused group discussions to identify the challenges facing the various communities on the issues under study and seek possible solutions.
Team Education for Girls hosted a Community Focused Group Discussion on the UNESCO Girls Back to School Campaign in Paiko Kore; a local community 10 minutes’ drive from Gwagwalada. The session was facilitated by the students and a Program Officer from GGCC and gave key stakeholders in the community opportunities to collectively express their concerns on challenges affecting the return of the girl child to school after the Covid-19 school lockdown. And as well develop solutions to this problem. Identified challenges leading to an increased number of out-of-school girls include:
- Hunger and poverty
- Pregnancy
- Marginalization
- Kidnapping and Insecurity
- Male chauvinism
Recommendations and proffered solutions
- Constituted community action team to create awareness and research on possibilities.
- Successfully educated girls should be used as community role models.
- Free education
- Special consideration for pregnant girls to prevent stigmatization.
On the other side, Team Climate Change engaged community leaders and youths of the Sheda community in Kwali, which is about 15 minutes’ drive from Gwagwalada to raise awareness on the impact climate change has on food security and nutrition in all its dimensions which include access, availability, utilization, and stability. This session was facilitated by the visiting students and a Program Officer from GGCC. Sheda community in Kwali Abuja is a predominantly farming community due to the availability of good soil and good rainfall. In the course of the discussion, numerous challenges to farming practices and food security were identified. Occasioned by climate and insecurity, the community faced issues such as:
- Forceful acquisition of community land by the government and its reallocation to non-indigenes
- Lack of finance for fertilizers and pesticides
- Inadequate rainfall which has been consistent for the past five years
- Environmental degradation and low yields
- Land erosion
- Herdsmen encroachment
- Deficiency in newer methods of farming
Recommendations and proffered solutions
- Sensitization on climate change and how it can be managed by the farmers to attain significant harvests.
- Need for collaboration and assistance from government and NGOs
- Need for machinery to compliment depleting manpower
- Reallocation of sieved lands back to indigenes
The evening session of day one commenced by 4 pm with a live session with Ms. Kemi an SA on ICT to the Minister of Youths and Sports which was followed by a presentation from both teams on their findings from the field/community engagement. However, the crux of the evening session focused on discussions on how crucial interconnecting academic research with community-solving skills has become. Ms. Kemi, the guest speaker identified the need to transform the research thesis into performances and the collection of research recommendations for better policy formulation. She also suggested the use of infomercials as a captivating method for engaging stakeholders. She further stressed the need for the students to write their thesis as an output orientated project especially seeing that most of them worked towards achieving the SDG Goals through artistic means. This could be a good mechanism for awareness creation and public engagement with audiences, especially those in the field of theatre, dance, painting and graphics.
Day two sessions kicked off with a Facebook live session from the GGCC studio. The dialogue session was co-anchored by the founder of CODE, Mr. Hamzat Lawal an activist and pioneer of the Follow The Money Movement. Discussions in this insightful session revolved around the importance of activism for community development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Mr. Lawal, a renowned activist shared his journey so far in the activist world and the challenges involved, while championing the transformation of research methods into a more practical community problem-solving research. The session was followed by an advocacy lecture by Mr. Oluwasemiye Michael. During his lecture, the students were introduced to the tools and importance of advocacy for the achievement of sustainable development. The capacity building lecture focused on the research areas of the students and how it can champion advocacy for development. This was an individual-type activity that guided individual students on how each of their researches could be translated to advocacies for the benefit of identified stakeholders and the communities the researches are based on/in. Activities were concluded for the day with a movie night. The students watched a community organizing documentary film titled “Knockdown the House” and were exposed further to the path and challenges faced by community champions in the quest for championing change and development in their communities.
Recommendations
There is an urgent need for diversification and synergy between the academic community, civil society organizations, and non-governmental organizations for a dual purpose of efficient research and development for sustainable development. One major takeaway from the program is that researching and presenting findings in a standard and well-documented piece of paper is not sufficient if it does not provide solutions to the agitations of the human mind and bring about development and or change.
Research must be purposively embarked upon to attain any kind of solution(s) to challenging issue(s) to promote development at all levels. The students learned useful tips on aligning their research for major advocacy and not the traditional research thesis for the shelves. Gainful knowledge on advocacy and community organizing was obtained and effective tools for achieving set targets.
Lastly, the practical study exercise, as well as the group analysis of the findings from the engaged communities, exposed the students to real-life situations that require urgent attention. The various approaches and techniques needed were also buttressed; diplomacy, patience, respect, and tolerance were among the takeaways of the students in the two-day practical study visit.