Think Creative - Issue 1

how to heal

The Education Crisis Response project’s Social Emotional Learning lessons help traumatized students—both boys and girls—better under- stand what they have experienced and provide useful tools to cope with complex and conflict- ing emotions and feelings. “In school, they taught me how to understand my emotions,” shares Aisha. “Now, I feel better.” Through the project’s proven curriculum, she is learning basic education like reading and math, as well as receiving social emotional support which is helping to replace cruel memories of the insurgency’s terror with positive and fulfilling activities. In each of themore than 1,400 learning centers, classroom sizes are small to ensure greater attention for the students, particularly since stu- dents like AishaMohammed have been absent from formal education for a year or two. Despite the hardship, she is looking forward to the future with self-assurance, a newfound excitement and sense of purpose. “After my studies, I want to help women like myself who were helped,” says Aisha. “That is my only ambition.” The teachers who teach students to cope As tens of thousands of internally displaced families poured into Maiduguri, school teacher Salamatu Ibrahim felt she had to do her part to help them. When she heard about the Educa- tion Crisis Response project’s need for facilita- tors, Ibrahim saw the opportunity to support the out-of-school children. Though she had years of experience as a pro- fessional teacher, she nonetheless had to go through the intensive training to prepare for emotionally traumatized students. Compared to her traditional classes, these students require a great deal of support. “You have to be patient with them, and you have to be like a guide to them,” she says. A learning facilitator at Zajiri Primary School with three years of teaching experience with private schools in Maiduguri, Ibrahim explains it requires special care to work with distressed children. The internally displaced students who arrive to the community-run non-formal learning centers are initially distracted, she says. Some may be jumping and running around the class- room, while others are withdrawn and sitting to the side.

(Top left) Wakail Mala Buka, Master Trainer with Education Crisis Response, and (top right) Ali Mustafa Gori, Executive Secretary for the Agency for Mass Literacy in Borno state, play a lead role in empowering facilitators like Salamatu Ibrahim (pictured here) with the training needed to ensure long-term, ongoing success.

“Social Emotional Learning skills are used to build the mental capabilities, emotional response and interpersonal relations of children, so that they can be better in life.”

-Wakail Mala Buka, Master Trainer for Education Crisis Response

“If they are tired, and they want to go home, then they will go home,” she says. “But later on, as we teach them Social Emotional Learn- ing, we can slowly control the class and we impart knowledge into their mind that when you’re in the class, you don’t have to have excuses to leave.” By limiting the size of the classroom to no more than 50 pupils, Ibrahim and other facilitators can more easily help the students to transition into a new routine. Ibrahim is one of 2,176 learning facilitators trained by the Education Crisis Response proj- ect on how to uniquely support traumatized

students with specialized activities and inter- ventions, such as Social Emotional Learning. Learning facilitators, who are trained to be sensitive through the Nigeria Education Crisis Response project, play a crucial role in supporting the mental health and psychosocial well-being of learners. “In different schools they [teachers] do beat students,” she says, referring to a common practice of corporal punishment, which is strictly prohibited in the non-formal learning centers. Ibrahim says engaging in stimulating and valu- able activities like singing, dancing and playing

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