Lagos, Nigeria – Mujanatu Musa’s one-roomed house – constructed primarily of rusty iron sheets – cuts a sorry sight in Ajegunle, a sprawling slum in Nigeria’s financial hub of Lagos.
Flanked by outdated, decrepit buildings, the makeshift construction shelters the 40-year-old mom and her three kids, Abdulrahman, 12, and 9-year-old twins, Abdulwaris and Abdulmalik.
Since Musa and her husband separated greater than three years in the past, the household has been dwelling on her irregular earnings of about 2,000 naira ($1.30) a day from hairdressing work. In dry spells when there aren’t any prospects, she is pressured to borrow cash from neighbours, she stated.
Instances are robust for the household, who match into the fold of the 133 million, or 63 %, of Nigeria’s inhabitants dwelling in multidimensional poverty, in accordance with authorities information.
If not for the privately run faculty locally that costs low tuition and permits underprivileged mother and father to pay faculty charges with used plastic bottles, the kids would haven’t any entry to formal schooling, Musa stated.
“Their father has left us since 2020. The plastic is what helps me pay their tuition,” the mom informed Al Jazeera.
“I couldn’t afford to ship them to highschool. My kids and I are at all times choosing up used plastic bottles round us.
“They know their schooling relies on it, and we even go to occasion venues to select.”
Plastic for tuition
In Ajegunle and different components of Lagos, privately run and authorities faculties co-exist, however mother and father want the previous as a result of most public faculties are overstretched, which negatively impacts the standard of schooling the kids get.
Whereas all authorities faculties in Lagos are “free”, faculty managements cost roughly 5,000 naira (about $3) per scholar per time period to cowl some overhead prices.
The varsity the Musas attend, Morit Worldwide College, is positioned about 1km from their residence.
It was first established as a fee-paying faculty in 2010 by Patrick Mbamarah, a chemistry graduate. Tuition was initially 6,000 naira ($3.66) per time period, however most mother and father and guardians within the space couldn’t afford it.
After excellent charges piled up and the losses began affecting the varsity, it was pressured to close down in 2012.
Mbamarah was capable of resume operations in 2014, but it was on the verge of being crippled by debt but once more when he got here up with a “plastic-for-tuition” initiative.
“I used to be strolling down the road sooner or later when the sight of plastic bottles scattered all over the place struck me,” he informed Al Jazeera. “That is cash,” Mbamarah thought to himself.
He determined that for individuals who couldn’t afford to pay tuition in naira, he’d enable them to pay in used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and sachet water waste, which the varsity would gather after which ship out for recycling – incomes them some cash.
“I launched it to the mother and father as a substitute technique of paying their kids’s faculty charges whereas additionally conserving the setting clear. They embraced the concept wholeheartedly,” Mbamarah stated.
Rising up in Ajegunle, a closely populated low-income neighbourhood, Mbamarah misplaced his manner on the streets as an adolescent. He was hooked on medication and indulged in different vices, which, he stated, nearly wrecked him earlier than schooling helped give him a second probability at an honest life.
Buoyed by the resolve to forestall underprivileged kids from struggling comparable challenges he confronted as an adolescent, he established the first faculty. He later based a secondary faculty locally, working tirelessly to get each establishments working.
“We presently have 158 college students: 112 within the major faculty, together with my 3 children, and 46 within the secondary faculty. The tutoring is now 10,000 naira (about $6) for major faculty and 21,000 naira ($13) for secondary faculty per time period. I don’t wish to cost a lot so as to not scare the mother and father away,” he stated.
“A kilogram of plastic bottles consists of 21 items bought for 100 naira. This implies the tutoring for a pupil is equal to 100kg,” he defined, saying mother and father who select to pay in plastic at all times meet their quota.
Fears the varsity might shut
When Morit Worldwide first began, there have been 5 pupils, together with certainly one of Mbamarah’s kids. Within the years since, enrolments have elevated and, with it, the quantity of plastic bottles on the faculty has swelled.
Whereas ordinarily this may be a blessing, the cost scheme has created logistical points which have confirmed a much bigger problem – and price – than Mbamarah anticipated.
Each week, mother and father carry within the plastic cost, however there isn’t any storage facility on web site to maintain tonnes of bottles for days, Mbamarah defined.
Hiring a pick-up van to frequently carry them to recycling factors on the market comes at an enormous value that significantly drains the varsity’s proceeds.
Just a few recyclers who present such service free of charge or at a bit value solely come for pick-up sometimes, he added.
The logistics disaster is now affecting faculty operations. It has restricted the “plastic-for-tuition” initiative to solely the first faculty, placing the entire undertaking on the cusp of extinction.
Mbamarah has additionally needed to in the reduction of on the gathering of plastic bottles as a result of they find yourself littering the varsity premises, inflicting environmental issues the initiative seeks to unravel within the first place.
“Plastic waste in Ajegunle is big, however we presently gather manner under what we should always. We gather about 500kg each two weeks, whereas we will really get not less than 2 tonnes [2,000 kg] per week,” he stated.
“Dad and mom carry sufficient plastic bottles, however most instances they take them again house as a result of we don’t have house to maintain them. I work with two recycling corporations, however they hardly come on time to select. So each the varsity and the mother and father usually have extra plastic bottles.”
With the challenges and prices, the proprietor stated he’s additionally defaulting on the compensation of loans he took from two banks to pay hire and employees salaries.
He had borrowed 300,000 naira ($183) to resume the first faculty’s yearly hire in December 2023, whereas that of the secondary faculty gulps 800,000 naira ($488) yearly.
“A time will come after I gained’t be capable of pay the hire once more, and so they [the property owners] will simply ask us to go away the varsity premises. I concern that in a really brief time I gained’t be capable of run the [primary] faculty once more. I’ve been doing the whole lot to chop prices,” he stated.
Mbamarah stated although the first faculty wants not less than 11 academics, “we solely have 5 academics, together with my spouse and I”. The secondary faculty has seven academics, when it wants a minimal of 12.
“I train in each major and secondary faculties. A trainer teaches greater than two topics, and I’m nonetheless contemplating downsizing so I will pay the employees. The space between the 2 faculties is about an 18-minute stroll. I shuttle each 3 times a day. For the way lengthy can I try this? I’ll simply break down sooner or later,” he lamented.
‘It’s getting worse’
Rhoda Adebayo, one of many schoolteachers, equally fears the state of affairs might get out of hand earlier than anticipated. When she joined the first faculty two years in the past, she was instructing seven topics.
“Now I train 13 [subjects]. It’s irritating, however the ardour retains me going. Like Mr Patrick, I additionally grew up in Ajegunle. I do know what many kids undergo. My wage may be very poor, however I discover the [plastic-for-tuition] initiative laudable and determined to help the kids.
“The varsity inhabitants retains rising. We now have been managing the state of affairs. Sadly, it’s getting worse. The paucity of funds is basically telling on the varsity operations,” she stated.
A few non-profits have promised to help the varsity, however none have but redeemed their guarantees, Mbamarah stated. Some Lagos state authorities officers additionally visited the varsity final 12 months and promised to forge a partnership, although nothing has occurred since. Nonetheless, some people do help the varsity by donations, he added.
The varsity deserves each little bit of help from people and company our bodies to remain afloat and thrive, stated Debo Adeniyi, the CEO and chief sustainability lead at a nonprofit assume tank, the Centre for World Options and Sustainable Growth.
“The initiative is extremely commendable, and it helps the setting lots. The quantity of plastic that goes into the setting, particularly water our bodies, will cut back, and invariably, the environmental influence will cut back,” he stated.
Within the meantime, Adeniyi suggested the varsity to search for extra recyclers to mitigate the issue of storing plastic bottles.
“Think about if a million plastic bottles received off the drainage system. Extra importantly, the initiative is addressing the out-of-school kids menace, which has turn into a critical problem in Nigeria,” he added.
For Musa and plenty of mother and father who couldn’t afford their kids’s tuition in money, a looming shutdown of the varsity would spell doom.
With out Morit, the pupils could add to the alarming variety of out-of-school kids aged 5–14 in Nigeria, estimated at 10.5 million, in accordance with UNICEF.
“I’m anxious,” Musa declared, wanting downcast.
“See my room,” she stated, gesturing inside her small house. “I don’t have any home equipment there. No tv, no fan, nothing. The comfort is that my kids are in class.
“Abdulrahman is in Main 4, and his siblings, the twins, are in Main 2. The place will I discover cash to ship them to a different faculty if this one shuts down?”
