Last month in Kano, at the state’s Rural and Sustainable Community Development Summit, someone told a story I have not stopped thinking about.
A team had gone out to a village to verify a complaint. There was no school there – 250 children with nowhere to learn. As the team was there – 250 metres away – the villagers ran after the car. ‘Wait,’ they said. If you are going to build us a school, you must also give us a primary health centre.
That community was not asking for two favours. They were telling us something: ‘Wait’, we in the development and business world keep forgetting. A hungry child cannot learn. A sick child cannot sit in a classroom. A girl who stays in school is far more likely to seek antenatal care, to vaccinate her children, and to marry at the right time. You cannot move one of
This post was originally published on this site.
