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There's a new war in the Northeast, and you should care

The Army is winning against Boko Haram. This new war will defeat the Boko Haram of the future.

A girl displaced as a result of Boko Haram attack in the northeast region of Nigeria, rests her head on a desk at Maikohi secondary school camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Yola, Adamawa State January 13, 2015.
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The least developed region is quite clearly the Northeast, no thanks to the pain in the Nigeria backside, Boko Haram.

Years of fighting has led to the devastation of lives, with up to 20,000 people dead, and thousands kidnapped.

Infrastructure is all but non-existent with the damage that will cost billions of dollars to rebuild.

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There's one damage more devastating, and arguably more monumental; the devastation of the minds.

By the end of the war, there will be two type of victims, especially children. The first are the those who will find purpose in seeking vengeance.

Bukky Shonibare has been doing humanitarian work in the Northeast since 2014, and she has this to say about one of her visits to Bama:

"I just came back from Bama, and those children don't want to be doctors or lawyers, or bankers or all those things. They want to be soldiers because they are ready for another war. Because of vendetta. Because they can't just let go of the person that killed their fathers in front of them or that took their sisters away"

The second are those who will be too vulnerable to be of any use to the society, mostly due to post-traumatic stress that can last a lifetime if not taken care of.

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These two types of vulnerable people can easily have their anger or insecurities harnessed for dangerous interests.

Bukky Shonibare says:

"I believe that one of the ways to win the war against Boko Haram is not by guns, we can win it with books, pens, and empowered minds. It about empowering a Joseph, a Muhammad, a Rebecca, a Deborah, or any of these children who are susceptible to being initiated.

Not only will education stop them from joining these groups, it will also empower them to develop their societies such that insurgency will not have roots in it. You can't expect for example for an insurgency to spring up in Lagos or Abuja because we live in a developed environment. Education is a tool for winning wars. It is not the immediate wars, but the long term wars, the monumental war that will prevent other wars from happening."

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And Bukky herself is on the front lines of this battlefield.

While she belongs to the #BringBackOurGirls advocacy group, she also understands that the Chibok Girls are a small piece of the IDP puzzle.

So she conceptualised a project called Adopt-A-Camp. The idea for this is to provide everything a child needs, from food and clothing to education.

Adopt-A-Camp's focus is mostly on the Northeast, but they executed a project in Abuja earlier in 2016. Their main focus is on communities like Bama, Chibok, and other places in the region.

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On what motivates her, she says:

"I know what it means to be homeless, or hungry, and to struggle with life because I can honestly relate it to my time struggling as a girl."

Speaking about their projects, she said:

"We focus primarily on education, so we started the school-in-a-bag project, where we give school kits to children.

We did it in Chibok.

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Learning hub project is where we setup collapsible solar-powered classrooms in IDP communities where there are no schools. We've done two in Biu, and we are about doing another in Bama.

Then there's the Educreation fund because we believe in creating a future through education.

So we basically use this project for scholarships to children. Right now, we have 11 IDP children we currently send to school who are from Gwoza and Chibok and are currently living in host communities where there are schools."

On people who aren't actively involved in humanitarian work in the Northeast, she says:

"All these people are our responsibility. It is irresponsible of us to keep pushing it back to government. Just find a thing you can do that you think will benefit the children, even if it is to teach them. If one person takes up an IDP, the problem will go. If it's clothes, do."

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Nothing is too small, she says.

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