Nathaniel Bivan

Nov 5, 2024 | csmonitor.com | Nathaniel Bivan

Seventeen-year-old Ahmad Aminu finished secondary school and would like to go to college near his village in Zamfara state. But this region of northwestern Nigeria bears the brunt of attacks by bandits who kidnap students for ransom. “All the big schools are in the forest,” Mr. Aminu says by phone in Hausa, the dominant local language.

Oct 10, 2024 | elpais.com | Nathaniel Bivan

Sebastine Andrew llegó al centro penitenciario de Jos (Estado de Plateau, centro-norte de Nigeria) en 2021, tras verse implicado en un robo a mano armada. Había dejado sus estudios después de la secundaria y al llegar a la cárcel comenzó a leer de nuevo y decidió unirse a un programa educativo que ha transformado la vida de varias decenas de reos en un país donde las prisiones están superpobladas y no cuentan con apenas recursos.

Jul 25, 2024 | primeprogressng.com | Nathaniel Bivan

“I will never stop smoking,” Apollos Daniel Yashim had vowed in 2019. But that would change. Yashim, 34, did drugs at a spot nicknamed ‘antenna’, near a telecommunications mast in Narayi, a suburb of Kaduna city in northwest Nigeria. In this rocky neighbourhood, he smoked wrap after wrap of marijuana and other narcotics until he dropped to the ground, semi-conscious (every time). Now, in retrospect, Yashim figures those wraps he smoked ran into hundreds per day.

Jun 27, 2024 | 120edgenews.com | Nathaniel Bivan

By Nathaniel BivanWhen you ask them under oath, many married couples would most likely admit to harbouring a deep-seated fear of discovering something dangerously irredeemable about their spouses. Hence, when they fell in love, and then tied what should be the ‘forever’ knot, they hoped and prayed to God that none of their worst nightmares would come true–that is if they were even ‘privileged’ to experience such a (warning) nightmare.

Jun 17, 2024 | csmonitor.com | Nathaniel Bivan

Mercy Sale wanted to study to become a computer scientist, but her school in Nigeria told her that, as a deaf student, she could not. In October 2019, Ms. Sale was part of a Deaf Technology Foundation team that flew to the Netherlands. It was among teams from 10 organizations around the world that competed for the Nothing About Us Without Us Award, which goes to nonprofits working with marginalized or disadvantaged communities.