MAIJIDDA DANAZUMI -19 years
Everything passes through the husband. That’s one of the wisdom of being married in her community, Maijidda Danazumi, 19 years old and married with one child knows this unspoken fact. However, timing is everything. One night, as she was serving her husband his favourite meal in the flickering light of the lamp, she delicately brought up the Matasa Matan Arewa (MMA) program. He listened while he ate with his hands and finally said, fine she could attend it. Initially, she didn’t see any value when a mentor from MMA reached out to tell her about the program. “But upon listening to her and what they do I realised how useful it was because there are many things I didn’t know, like how to keep myself clean and how to make sure that I don’t fall pregnant again so fast.” She recalls.
One in five girls aged 15-19 across Northern Nigeria have access to modern contraception. Through MMA and A360’s blueprint, the gap is being filled. She also learned about savings and she intends to start saving money from the allowance her husband gives her to start a business at home where she sells provisions and ultimately supports her husband financially. Maijidda is currently a 100-level student in the College of Education and Legal Studies in Ringim Jigawa State studying early childcare education (ECCE). “I feel safe, strong, and motivated honestly and I can say I am now more exposed than before and more confident even in terms of communicating with people around me before I could not sit and talk like this.’’
She went for one-on-one counselling where she took oral pills because she wants to focus on her education and starting up her business as she is now confident that she isn’t getting pregnant soon. It seems easy to plan with that blind spot taken care of. Oh, and she adds that the hygiene lessons from the MMA sessions have duly been noted by her husband.
