Chris Tidey, UNICEF's emergency communication specialist, reports from Niamey, Niger on the growing food crisis and its potentially devastating impact on children's education.
Zara, 14, and Oumou, 16, are cousins from the village of Bégorou Tondou in Niger’s Tillabery region – an area that's been especially hard hit this year by drought and poor harvest. Food has become scarce for the two girls and their family, who are now surviving on just one meal a day.
Meat and milk are long-gone delicacies, their mutton and cattle having died months ago. The situation became so desperate that the girls’ fathers left to find work in Ghana late last year. Zara and Oumou have not heard from them since. They are, however, still attending school – at least for the time being.
Zara and Oumou survive on one meal a day. ©UNICEF/Niger/2012/CTidey
"We've never had so little food", says Oumou. "Of course, I want to continue going to school, but sometimes I'm so hungry and low on energy that I can't even see the blackboard."
Zara agrees and suggests that if the situation does not improve, they may have no choice, but to stop coming altogether. Some of their classmates have done just that. Since October 2010, the number of students attending the girls’ school has dropped from 180 students to less than 100. Education authorities in the Téra district of Tillabery report that nearly 16,000 students have left school since the end of the harvest in late October.
Twelve-year-old Semana and his family are now living as migrants on the outskirts of Niamey after they were forced to move from their village more than 60 kilometres away because of a lack of food.
Semana has not been in school since the family moved several months ago and is unlikely to return to class any time soon. He is helping his father Oumarou earn money by transporting goods across town on their donkey cart.
Semana and his family have left their village for Niamey in search of food and work. ©UNICEF/Niger/2012/CTidey
The work yields the equivalent of €2 per day, but at least it provides them with enough to buy food. When asked about school, Semana says simply, "It (school) is not an option for me right now because I must work with my father to earn money for the food we eat."
Meals keep children in school
Growing food insecurity is also driving families apart. Many parents are leaving their children in villages where they are guaranteed at least one meal a day at the school, while they head to Niamey or Burkina Faso in search of work and food.
Souleye is one such child, left by his parents to stay with his grandmother in the village of Bégorou Tondou so that he could have two meals a day attending the local school. Souleye’s parents left at the end of last year and will not return until the next harvest in October at the earliest.
The parents of both Souleye (left) and Issoufou (right) have left them behind in search of food and work. ©UNICEF/Niger/2012/CTidey
"Last year was okay, but not this year," says Souleye. "I eat at school during the day, but it's not enough. Sometimes, I can't sleep at night because of stomach cramps."
The situation for Souleye and other students like him could become even more precarious. If the canteen stops, many students will be forced to leave school, causing further interruption to their education. "We have enough food to last another week," explains the school headmaster Ibrou Salifou in Bégorou Tondou. "If we have to stop the canteen, families with children will leave the village and we'll be forced to close the school."
In a country like Niger where nearly 60 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and educational indicators are among the lowest in the world, the importance of keeping children in school can hardly be overstated. Even before the onset of this year’s crisis, more than half of those Nigerien children who actually enrol in school drop out.
Pupils in their classroom in Bégoura Tondou, Tillabery region, Niger. © UNICEF/Niger/2012/CTidey
We're working with the government of Niger and humanitarian partners like the World Food Programme to provide emergency school feeding, construct temporary classrooms for displaced children and help local authorities expand the capacity of existing schools in host communities.
But more help is needed.
We need US $ 25.7 million (£16.3 million) in funding to continue to meet the growing needs of children in Niger whose lives are under threat from the nutrition crisis.
It is not too late, but we must act now.
Find out more
Chris Tidey is Communication Specialist, Media/Emergencies at UNICEF.