Drowning
Its the rainy season right now in Nigeria and austerity measures are being put into place all over the country due to the upcoming elections.
As a mentor, I will volunteer some of my time between projects to help young people find their way. So, for the past 9 months, I was able to recruit 5 young Nigerian men who had been looking to change their lives around from the trappings of online scamming and feeling helpless in their own communities, with virtually no to very little opportunity in sight to pull out of the country’s ongoing high poverty rate, which stands between 40-63%. This means, in Nigeria, 40.1% of people are poor according to the 2018/19 national monetary poverty line, and 63% are multidimensionally poor according to the National MPI 2022. Multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72% of people are poor, compared to 42% of people in urban areas, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
To make things worse, the Niger Delta is right now experiencing one of the worst flooding ever. Thousands of people are becoming stranded, isolated and rendered homeless because of rising flood waters. The dams are at their full capacity and bursting and water is being released creating a dire situation for regular people down stream. It’s the worst flooding they’ve experienced in years. Their government is no where to be found with any help whatsoever. The people are on their own to fend for themselves. The country is ripe with corruption and moral is very low.
In the village of Amassoma, Perekime and Alex, two of my film students, are sending me images of their community under siege. My other film students, Elechi, Emeng and Obinna, who are in the Port Harcourt area, have themselves been off line for close to two weeks now, so I am a concerned for their well being. For almost a year of remote instruction, they’ve been diligently working together with me to get their film projects started, particularly having their script and storyboard ready, so they can begin filming their music video project.
Here is a message I received from one of my students describing what it was like for him and others in his village:
“It’s kind of hard here sir. We’ve been going through a lot of hard time, to get food and all that. Its rainy season right now. Lately, we have not been able to get in and out to work on construction sites for about a month now. Its kind of hard in this community.
That is why we haven’t been able to come online lately, to do our classes. It’s not that we can’t work or we are lazy to do any work. The problem here is there is actually no work to do at the moment. To get better work, you have to have better connection. The whole time we have been struggling. We had to borrow money to get this data to talk to you. The thing right now is that its the rainy season, so we cannot travel and find any kind of manual day work. There is no money in our pockets, even to feed, I hope you understand me? We have not eaten since for two days now.
The government is trying to tighten the economy in because of the coming elections, so things are just hard. The only thing keeping our sanity is the burning desires we had to succeed despite the harsh government conditions and a constitution that is aimed at ruining the lives of the youths. They kept telling us we are the leaders of tomorrow…but we don’t see a tomorrow coming anytime soon. We even have rent issues at the moment, but our landlord is a little bit understanding. If not, our things would have been thrown out of the house. I am very far from my parents. I came across three states to be here in Port Harcourt, where I’m actually trying to make out a life on my own. It’s like that sir. We appreciate your efforts towards us and we believe so much in you. We see you as our dad because your words is what keeps us going each and every day, to hear your courage, your speech. We love you so much Mr. Hayden and we want this to become a reality in our life, and know that you a have very big plans for us, and that is why when it gets tough on us, we have to run to you (for help).”
The image you see was taken by one of my students who managed to vividly capture the dire situation in his community with his iPhone camera device. As you can see, he is learning about visual composition and has begun to video document his life there, sharing his music and creating visual content for social media.
You wish to make a difference, just by donating $10, $30, $50? It makes a huge difference in their lives and the community. It gives them an opportunity to develop life skills through film-making and storytelling, to empower them to speak, to help their communities.