Lagos, Nigeria – Mujanatu Musa’s one-roomed condominium – 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Flanked by outdated, decrepit buildings, the makeshift construction shelters the 40-year-old mom and her three youngsters, Abdulrahman, 12, and 9-year-old twins, Abdulwaris and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 residing on her irregular earnings of about 2,000 naira ($1.30) a day from hairdressing work. In dry spells when there are not any clients, she is compelled to borrow cash from neighbours, she stated.
Occasions are powerful for the household, who match into the fold of the 133 million, or 63 p.c, of Nigeria’s inhabitants residing in multidimensional poverty, based on authorities information.
If not for the privately run college locally that expenses low tuition and permits underprivileged dad and mom to pay college charges with used plastic bottles, the youngsters would don’t have 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 advised Al Jazeera.
“I couldn’t afford to ship them to highschool. My youngsters and I are at all times selecting up used plastic bottles round us.
“They know their schooling will depend on it, and we even go to occasion venues to choose.”
Plastic for tuition
In Ajegunle and different elements of Lagos, privately run and authorities colleges co-exist, however dad and mom choose the previous as a result of most public colleges are overstretched, which negatively impacts the standard of schooling the youngsters get.
Whereas all authorities colleges in Lagos are “free”, college managements cost roughly 5,000 naira (about $3) per scholar per time period to cowl some overhead prices.
The college the Musas attend, Morit Worldwide Faculty, is situated about 1km from their residence.
It was first established as a fee-paying college in 2010 by Patrick Mbamarah, a chemistry graduate. Tuition was initially 6,000 naira ($3.66) per time period, however most dad and mom and guardians within the space couldn’t afford it.
After excellent charges piled up and the losses began affecting the college, it was compelled to close down in 2012.
Mbamarah was in a position to 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 in the future when the sight of plastic bottles scattered in all places struck me,” he advised 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 college would accumulate after which ship out for recycling – incomes them some cash.
“I launched it to the dad and mom instead technique of paying their youngsters’s college charges whereas additionally preserving the atmosphere 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 a teenager. He was hooked on medicine and indulged in different vices, which, he stated, nearly wrecked him earlier than schooling helped give him a second probability at a good life.
Buoyed by the resolve to forestall underprivileged youngsters from struggling comparable challenges he confronted as a teenager, he established the first college. He later based a secondary college locally, working tirelessly to get each establishments working.
“We at present have 158 college students: 112 within the main college, together with my 3 children, and 46 within the secondary college. The schooling is now 10,000 naira (about $6) for main college and 21,000 naira ($13) for secondary college per time period. I don’t need to cost a lot so as to not scare the dad and mom away,” he stated.
“A kilogram of plastic bottles consists of 21 models bought for 100 naira. This implies the tutoring for a pupil is equal to 100kg,” he defined, saying dad and mom who select to pay in plastic at all times meet their quota.
Fears the college may shut
When Morit Worldwide first began, there have been 5 pupils, together with one in all Mbamarah’s youngsters. Within the years since, enrolments have elevated and, with it, the amount of plastic bottles on the college has swelled.
Whereas ordinarily this could be a blessing, the fee scheme has created logistical points which have confirmed an even bigger problem – and price – than Mbamarah anticipated.
Each week, dad and mom deliver within the plastic fee, however there isn’t any storage facility on website to maintain tonnes of bottles for days, Mbamarah defined.
Hiring a pick-up van to recurrently carry them to recycling factors on the market comes at an enormous value that significantly drains the college’s proceeds.
A number of recyclers who present such service at no cost or at somewhat value solely come for pick-up often, he added.
The logistics disaster is now affecting college operations. It has restricted the “plastic-for-tuition” initiative to solely the first college, 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 college premises, inflicting environmental issues the initiative seeks to unravel within the first place.
“Plastic waste in Ajegunle is big, however we at present accumulate manner under what we must always. We accumulate about 500kg each two weeks, whereas we will truly get at the least 2 tonnes [2,000 kg] per week,” he stated.
“Mother and father deliver sufficient plastic bottles, however most instances they take them again house as a result of we don’t have area to maintain them. I work with two recycling corporations, however they hardly come on time to choose. So each the college and the dad and mom typically have extra plastic bottles.”
With the challenges and prices, the proprietor stated he’s additionally defaulting on the reimbursement of loans he took from two banks to pay hire and workers salaries.
He had borrowed 300,000 naira ($183) to resume the first college’s yearly hire in December 2023, whereas that of the secondary college gulps 800,000 naira ($488) yearly.
“A time will come after I gained’t be capable of pay the hire once more, they usually [the property owners] will simply ask us to go away the college premises. I worry that in a really quick time I gained’t be capable of run the [primary] college once more. I’ve been doing all the things to chop prices,” he stated.
Mbamarah stated although the first college wants at the least 11 academics, “we solely have 5 academics, together with my spouse and I”. The secondary college has seven academics, when it wants a minimal of 12.
“I train in each main and secondary colleges. A instructor teaches greater than two topics, and I’m nonetheless contemplating downsizing so I pays the workers. The gap between the 2 colleges 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 in the future,” he lamented.
‘It’s getting worse’
Rhoda Adebayo, one of many schoolteachers, equally fears the state of affairs may get out of hand before anticipated. When she joined the first college two years in the past, she was instructing seven topics.
“Now I train 13 [subjects]. It’s nerve-racking, however the ardour retains me going. Like Mr Patrick, I additionally grew up in Ajegunle. I do know what many youngsters undergo. My wage may be very poor, however I discover the [plastic-for-tuition] initiative laudable and determined to help the youngsters.
“The college inhabitants retains rising. We have now been managing the state of affairs. Sadly, it’s getting worse. The paucity of funds is basically telling on the college operations,” she stated.
A few non-profits have promised to help the college, however none have but redeemed their guarantees, Mbamarah stated. Some Lagos state authorities officers additionally visited the college final 12 months and promised to forge a partnership, although nothing has occurred since. Nevertheless, some people do assist the college via donations, he added.
The college deserves each little bit of assist from people and company our bodies to remain afloat and thrive, stated Debo Adeniyi, the CEO and chief sustainability lead at a nonprofit suppose tank, the Centre for International Options and Sustainable Growth.
“The initiative is very commendable, and it helps the atmosphere lots. The quantity of plastic that goes into the atmosphere, particularly water our bodies, will scale back, and invariably, the environmental influence will scale back,” he stated.
Within the meantime, Adeniyi suggested the college to search for extra recyclers to mitigate the issue of storing plastic bottles.
“Think about if a million plastic bottles acquired off the drainage system. Extra importantly, the initiative is addressing the out-of-school youngsters menace, which has turn out to be a severe problem in Nigeria,” he added.
For Musa and lots of dad and mom who couldn’t afford their youngsters’s tuition in money, a looming shutdown of the college would spell doom.
With out Morit, the pupils might add to the alarming variety of out-of-school youngsters aged 5–14 in Nigeria, estimated at 10.5 million, based on UNICEF.
“I’m apprehensive,” Musa declared, wanting downcast.
“See my room,” she stated, gesturing inside her small condominium. “I don’t have any home equipment there. No tv, no fan, nothing. The comfort is that my youngsters are in class.
“Abdulrahman is in Major 4, and his siblings, the twins, are in Major 2. The place will I discover cash to ship them to a different college if this one shuts down?”