Dagiri Bassa, a small community with a population of about 250 people in the Kwali Local Government Area (LGA) of Abuja, lacked a formal school for many years. On select days, children would gather in makeshift learning spaces, their voices echoing as they recited alphabets and numbers. This limited form of education was all that was available to them. When noon arrived, students would disperse to their homes, returning for more recitation throughout the school week. However, in seasons when the weather is harsh or unfriendly, learning is halted, and only those students whose parents could afford it undertook the two-hour journey to attend a school in a neighbouring community called Sabo Gari.
However, things changed sometime in 2013, when the community completed and celebrated the opening of a new LEA primary school building. The new structure—complete with corrugated roofing sheets, cement blocks, and freshly painted walls—offered what felt like a promise of quality education.
Audu Dabbas, the community’s Sarki, meaning leader, said: ‘’The occasion brought a sense of hope to families living in the community.’’
However, the joy was short-lived. One morning in 2015, as students and teachers gathered for the usual morning assembly, heavy rain interrupted.
Hours later the rainstorm had ripped through the school, tearing off the roof, shattering windows, leaving chaos in its wake. While the school’s exterior gave the appearance of permanence, the structure was not designed to endure the heavy rains.
Haroon Yusuf, a youth leader in the community, vividly recalls the frantic moments that followed.
“Danladi and Fatima, my young cousins, returned early from school that day. I assumed their teacher had sent them away for mischief. But as I got to the school, I saw the building destroyed,” he recounted.
The rainstorm left one student and two teachers severely injured, all requiring immediate medical attention. They were transported on motorcycles to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, where they received treatment. Fortunately, they survived, but the damage to the community was nearly irreparable.
Pai, a neighbouring community within the Kwali Area Council of Nigeria’s capital and about 12 km from Dagiri Bassa faced a more tragic situation following a prolonged rainy season that filled its riverbanks and flooded parts of the area.
In June 2023, three siblings—Dauda, Hardeeza, and Aliyah aged 16, 12 and 8 respectively—were making their way home from school when it started raining heavily as they approached Keuta Bridge, approximately 200 meters from their school. With no visible shelter, they hurried toward the bridge to escape the rain. However, the downpour intensified, causing the usually manageable stream at Keuta Bridge to swell with dangerous floodwaters. Recognizing the peril, Dauda, the eldest sibling, instructed his younger siblings to hold hands for safety as they attempted to cross the flooded area.
However, the force of the water proved too strong. In their rush to safety, Aliyah, the youngest, lost her grip and was immediately swallowed by the current. Despite desperate attempts to save her, Aliyah drowned, her lifeless body carried away by the raging waters. Community swimmers struggled against the torrent, but what happened in a few minutes took days to resolve.
“It took us two days to recover Aliyah’s body,” Dauda recounted, his voice heavy with grief. “I thought that as the eldest, I could save her, but the water was much that day. I managed to save Hardeeza,but I couldn’t save Aliyah,” he said, recalling the tragic incident.
The incident that day at Keuta Bridge marked the height of the numerous difficulties faced by children in underserved communities when accessing education during climate emergencies.
Data from the World Bank reveals that no less than 400 million students globally have experienced school closures since 2022 due to the significant impact of climate change. These far-reaching consequences disrupt education, threaten food security, and displace communities.
A New Dawn with an Innovative Response
For leaders in the Pai community, recurring destruction of school buildings and Aaliyah’s death called for immediate action to preserve the community and ensure students have continued access to quality education. Abubakar Pai, the leader and monarch of the Pai community, disclosed in an interview with Edugist that “self-sufficiency and resilience in the community necessitated EcoDucate,” an innovative education model he initiated to address both infrastructural decay in schools around the LGA and the noticeable knowledge gap around climate education.
“We have always relied on the land, and it has provided for us but we have now returned to nature-based solutions to help our children stay in schools and safeguard their future,” the Monarch said.
The EcoDucate model embraces these nature-based solutions by creating classrooms that can withstand today’s harsher climate realities. The design incorporates bamboo for structural support, reinforced with palm tree materials and mud blocks, elevating buildings to resist seasonal floods and using water-resistant materials for added durability.
Since its implementation, schools like Community High School, LEA Primary school in Pai and LEA School Dagiri-Bassa have been renovated using the EcoDucate infrastructural intervention. This has resulted in more resilience to floods, according to Monarch Pai, and “children can now attend school year-round, even in the rainy season,” he said.
Our Children Are Back in School
The renovated buildings are made possible by a group of volunteer community construction workers who say they have no choice but to take their children’s safety and educational advancement into their own hands.
“We promised ourselves that not again is climate change going to stop our children from going to school,” says Usman Musa, one of the community construction workers, also a father resident in the Pai community.
“Today, children from Kwali and nearby villages—like Leleye Gwari, Leleye Bassa, Kundu, and Damakusa—are coming to our schools. They’re learning how to navigate the challenges of a changing environment, especially after we’ve lost over 15 people in just three years to climate-related incidents,” Musa said.
For parents and other community members like Danladi Barawa, a farmer in Pai, EcoDucate is about more than just education; it’s about survival. “At first, this was unfamiliar,” Barawa admitted. “In this part of the world, we’re used to seeing schools with blocks and cement. But this new building style will not only keep our children in school; it’s giving everyone in the community a chance to learn,” he told Edugist.
While still in its early stages, EcoDucate has generated new awareness, employment opportunities, and income within Pai and neighbouring communities.
“Although most artisans involved in this program are volunteers, it has also created jobs and income sources. There are farmers among us supplying bamboo and palm trees; even though the cash involved isn’t substantial, they receive payment for their time,” Barawa said.
EcoDucate is not only helping students stay in school but also fostering a broader understanding of environmental issues. Through partnerships with neighbouring communities, EcoDucate is evolving into a movement, uniting villages to share resources, knowledge, and strategies to avert the dangers of climate change.
Integrating Sustainability Education, While Absolving Gender Inclusion
Two years since renovating the first school building in Pai, EcoDucate has gone beyond just building infrastructure to climate education. In collaboration with teachers, it has integrated climate education and sustainable agriculture into the daily school lessons. According to the Monarch Pai, students now learn about the impact of climate change on their environment and are taught practical skills to mitigate its effects.
“Here, we don’t just learn from books,” says Fatima, a 14-year-old student from Leleye Bassa, one of the neighbouring communities benefitting from the initiative. “We learn how to take care of the earth. We plant trees, we learn how to grow food even when the rains don’t come. We know that when we grow up, it will be our job to protect our village.”
“Education is not just about books,” Bala Nasiru, another volunteer supporting the implementation of the EcoDucate program in Pai community, said while teaching a group of children to tend a small garden behind the school. “It’s about giving our children the right knowledge and skills that will prepare them to face the future.”
“It used to be that we didn’t see the value of education,” says Halima Bakari, a food vendor and mother of four in Pai, whose children now go to school with much less hassle. “But when communities began coming together to support government efforts on how our children can survive the impact of climate change, we realized that education is the key to our future.”
The EcoDucate have also empowered girls, who historically faced significant barriers to education in the region. Through continued advocacy, more girls are now attending school and participating in after-school programs focused on leadership and environmental stewardship.
“I want our community to be like Pai one day,” says Aisha, a 16-year-old from Damakusa, with eyes gleaming with determination. “I want to help my people, to make sure we have schools, and to also protect our village from the impact of climate change”.
Barriers and Challenges To Prospect
While EcoDucate presents a promising response to the education crisis in these communities, it faces several challenges. The most pressing issue is the lack of adequate funding. Although the project has garnered support from the community, its implementation remains limited due to concerns about long-term sustainability. Establishing climate-resilient schools requires substantial investment, and without government support, local initiatives like EcoDucate may struggle to completely transform rural education.
Another challenge is the acceptance and scalability of this approach. Muktar Suleiman, a civil engineer resident in Abuja, acknowledges the innovation’s potential but questions its wider acceptance.
“This is a commendable initiative that could help revive Nigeria’s struggling educational system,” he says. “However, the idea of climate-resilient school buildings is still unfamiliar to many in government.” He emphasizes that policy barriers exist that could hinder the broader adoption of such concepts.
A similar programme is being touted in Kaduna State
Although using nature-based materials like bamboo to construct climate-resistant classrooms may be a new approach in the Kwali communities, it is not entirely foreign to Nigeria.
Since 2020, the use of bamboo for building schools has been promoted in Kaduna State as a way to create climate-resilient structures. Comrade Nurudden Bello, Director of African Climate Reporters, has hailed this method as a key strategy for mitigating global warming.
This presents a clear path for the EcoDucate model, especially if more local and international organizations collaborate with communities and governments to secure funding, says the Monarch of Pai.
He stressed the importance of engaging the government and stakeholders to secure policymakers’ support in mitigating climate change’s effects and preventing disruptions to the education system. “We cannot stop the rains from falling, but we can control our response. If we all work together to keep our children in school, we can significantly reduce the vices in our society.”
He added that if more communities adopt this model, it could eventually lay the groundwork for a nationally recognized system of climate-resilient schools.
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This story was produced with the support of the Solutions Journalism Network and the Nigeria Health Watch in partnership with Edugist.
