Dr Aisha
In November last year, making rounds from one Facebook/Twitter timeline, group or media outlet to the other, was Awwal Sani Anwar’s treatise, which he headed out of his hobbyhorse as: ‘Fiona: A Beacon of Hope in the Trembling City of Kano.’ In it, Awwal carried the story of his encounter with, according to his description, a tall white woman, Fiona Lovatt, who came all the way from New Zealand to change for good the future of our children and brothers in Nigeria, who by the time of her coming, could aptly be described as hopeless. And she has been doing that since her arrival. According to what I understood of Fiona from Awwal’s piece was that she is a type of person who does the work herself whenever she deems it fit—no long proposals handed out to government officials and politicians, no, no… And we cannot but be ashamed! How on earth could a New Zealander and a woman for that matter come down all the way from her country to change the future of our brothers and children in our land? While we will remain ashamed, Fiona no doubt deserves our commendation, respect, and all that is good. The fact is, she has touched the lives of our children and brothers in a way we never thought of ourselves, and probably wouldn’t have ever; and sadly she has taught us how to change the destinies of our children, when clearly we don’t know, in a way no excuse could stand again.
While Fiona will forever remain our role model, and commands our respect for that, there is someone from within us who deserves nothing less—someone who I have not seen yet to give any description about. But her attitude towards the future of the hopeless young children especially the Almajiris roaming the sunny streets of Kano and other cities in the North without shoes begging for survival, is, if not similar, the same with that of Fiona. She is a woman too, but has also been doing what men have not attempted yet—giving us more explanation behind the logic of why women were made our (men) mothers, and not other way round. And I know her well, her philosophy is not the cliché: what a man can do, a woman can do better. Hers comes from her understanding of the role of women in our society—as our mothers, wives, housekeepers and what have you—as taught in Islam and other religions.
She is medical doctor by profession, I have got no idea why she went for it, but it could be deduced from her attitude that she may have chosen it out of her passion to save humanity. Or, what does it mean when someone, in spite of the tight schedules of medical practice, though exaggerated, finds time to contact and bring different people from different angles together—a full-time engagement of its own—and sacrifice her resources, at the expense of her kids and siblings, just to salvage the future of young boys of someone she didn’t know and would almost certainly never know? You got to tell yourself!
How is this woman doing this and how did I get to know her? This woman, who sees these street roaming children from the point of view of her children, confronted me one very boring night in Facebook, through the Instant Messaging chat, with the idea of the future of the Almajiri. And at that instance, I had no intention to respond to any chat, but hers was not any chat! As if she knew, it was one thing I was very much concerned about. And soon she brought the idea to my attention, the boredom frittered away! Her first question was: what is your take on the issue of the Almajiri? Well my response has always been one: they can be salvaged! Little did I know that, by that time, she has already started—in her own way!
After a long conversation, she told me that she has a plan; and not only a plan, she has already initiated a movement to go about it, which she wants me to join. I responded in the affirmative. But the truth is, her plan is no plan. What she believed in was: the Almajiri can be salvaged—she had little idea how to do it. But she believed, what was needed was to: bring people together, (meet) minds, and a plan will be hammered out! And she did; and her no plan is now a plan—and this is Almajiri Tsangaya Foundation (ATF). Perhaps ATF cannot be a plan, but an instrument that brings people to (meet) minds in order to conceive a certain goal and plan on how to pursue it—and also pursue it! But the ATF itself was a product of bringing people together to (meet) minds. And at the moment, ATF is an organization, registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) with the registration no. 556635—therefore a plan of no plan!
In this way, Dr. had brought together some of the best minds together to work the work—and the work is being worked—reminding us of the wisdom which intelligent people are notorious for—i.e. bringing more intelligent people to the roundtable and work; learning from all of them and by the end of the day, the work is done well, and one in addition becomes all-in-one genius. Albeit I labeled her as planlessly confident from the onset, the story has long changed. While at the moment she has already put and locked up engineers in the engine room, working—only Allah knows the product of it—she has already done enough to deserve commendation.
She believed Almajiranci can be murdered and generations to come will only hear of it, if it all they will, in the pages of history books. But unlike others, her philosophy is that, this can only be done by encouraging self-reliance of the Almajiri. And that is where we have the scheme: Adopt an Almajiri for N2, 000 per Month for Five Months—just for a start. And how is this? She said, ‘in this scheme, a volunteer adopts an Almajiri without taking him away from his school/environs, but commits himself to being responsible for his training on vocational education in areas such as carpentry, tailoring, bakery, masonry, fishery, poultry-keeping, waste management, trade and etc.’
In the light of this, she has liaised with couple of workshops which will train the Almajiris on the areas mentioned above. The N2, 000 is to settle the services of the various workshops that will do the training. A volunteer may not come to physical contact with his adopted Almajiri unless he wishes. In a couple of months, the Almajiri will graduate after being well trained to put up his own business—and when the turn for him to also train little ones comes to his neck. And you wonder what else encourages self-reliance more than this! One is amazed how some people have such an insanely creative mind and deep foresight. The truth is, Dr., I am…
Unfortunately however, this is the last paragraph of the piece, and how many times have you been disappointed in the course of reading? I know you are disappointed after reading every paragraph without seeing the name of this living legend mentioned. So now you have it, the name is: Dr. Aisha Al-Bashir. Join me in saluting to a woman worthy of global recognition. A woman who sacrificed her time, resources, energy etc. for the children of some people who deliberately want them out on the streets, not for her children or loved ones. While she is busy at the hospital, saving thousands of lives, it did not take her mind away from those children on the streets who never knew love—and now in her, they have got a mother from the blue, who shows them love and gives them hope. Simply put, she is the personification of the expression: beacon of hope.
