A Classroom That Mends: Inside a Reparative School Giving Survivors Back Their Childhood in Maiduguri

Sunlight and Quiet: A Classroom That Feels Like Safety

On a dusty street in Maiduguri, the sound of children’s voices is soft but unmistakable. The room is plain — plastic chairs, a chalkboard, a few handmade posters promising respect and safety — but for the dozen or so children who come here each morning, it is far more than a school. It is a place that keeps them from being stared at or asked questions they cannot answer. It is a space where they can sit, draw, learn to read and, slowly, stop reliving the worst days of their lives.

This classroom is part of a pilot reparative education programme set up this year to help survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. The aim is simple and rare in hard places: to give children and young people a predictable routine, psychosocial care and the basics of schooling, all under roof that treats them first as learners and second as patients. The project is led by an international survivors’ fund working with a regional foundation and local partners, and it has been supported by a short-term Education Cannot Wait grant focused on schooling during emergencies.

How the Programme Teaches, Heals and Protects

The school’s daily plan looks like a mash-up of a community classroom and a child-friendly clinic. Sessions are short and predictable. Mornings begin with a circle: a simple check-in where children share how they are feeling, using faces drawn on cards if they cannot speak directly. That moves into guided play and creative activities meant to rebuild trust and a sense of safety.

Afternoons focus on basic literacy and numeracy, but the lessons are small, practical and tied to life skills — reading a simple note, counting ration items, or following a recipe. Teachers are trained not only in reading instruction but in trauma-informed approaches: they keep routines, avoid sudden loud corrections, and use positive reinforcement. Class sizes are deliberately small so staff can watch for signs of distress.

Psychosocial support sits at the centre of the model. Trained counsellors run group therapy sessions and offer one-on-one support when a child is overwhelmed. Social workers coordinate with caregivers to plan safe travel to the centre and to identify protection risks at home. Local community volunteers help with outreach and afternoon activities, which keeps the programme anchored in the neighbourhood it serves.

Child protection measures are simple but strict. Each child’s attendance is tracked, and staff immediately follow up if a child stops coming. Entry to the centre is controlled to protect privacy. Consent from caregivers is required, and all staff sign confidentiality agreements and get basic training on safeguarding, reporting and how to respond to disclosures. Where necessary, medical referrals are available through partner clinics.

The funders framed the project as part of the education-in-emergencies practice: rapid, nimble and tied to longer-term recovery goals. That means the school is designed to be a bridge — a place to stabilise learning and wellbeing so children can eventually rejoin formal education when they are ready.

Small Voices, Big Changes: What Survivors Say

Words matter here, and the most powerful proof of change comes in the quiet phrases children use to describe small wins.

“I can sit with my friend now and not feel scared,” said one girl who attends the centre and asked that her name be changed. “Before I used to hide. Now I read aloud and the teacher claps.” Her caregiver added that the girl has begun helping with chores again and sleeps more peacefully most nights.

A teenage boy who had spent long stretches away from other children showed a different kind of progress. At first he would only draw scenes of the night he fled. Over weeks, he began drawing family scenes and football matches. “He laughs sometimes,” his grandmother said. “I had forgotten how his laugh sounded.”

Teachers and counsellors notice changes that do not always make headlines: kids who used to bolt from a classroom door now linger to finish a colouring page; children who could not walk past certain streets because of flashbacks can now travel with a trained escort and a predictable routine. Staff stress that healing is not linear — there are setbacks — but they point to attendance and steady engagement as signs the approach is working.

For caregivers, the school is a double relief: a place that reduces shame and stigma by creating a protected, routine space for children to be seen only as learners, and a place that gives adults practical support for parenting in the aftermath of trauma.

Who Built the School and Where the Money Came From

The programme grew from a partnership between an international survivors’ fund and a regional foundation experienced in social programmes, with implementation handled by local non-governmental partners on the ground in Maiduguri. A short-term Education Cannot Wait grant provided the initial funding to set up the centre, recruit staff and cover the first months of operations.

Coordinators describe the effort as a pilot: it was launched in 2025 as a rapid response to improve immediate support for survivors and to test a model that might be copied elsewhere. Local partners handled site selection, community engagement and day-to-day staffing, while the international fund and the foundation covered training, supervision, and procurement of learning materials and basic supplies.

Scale has been intentionally modest. The pilot operates with small cohorts meant to reach dozens, perhaps into the low hundreds over several months, rather than tens of thousands. That keeps class sizes manageable and lets counsellors give focused attention. Monitoring is basic but systematic: attendance records, simple wellbeing checklists administered regularly, teacher reports, and monthly partner meetings to track safety incidents and progress. Organisers say a more formal evaluation is planned if further funding is secured.

Security, Stigma and the Long Road Ahead

The programme’s gains are fragile. Security in and around Maiduguri remains unpredictable, which complicates travel for families and staff and can force temporary closures. Stigma is another persistent threat: survivors and their caregivers can face ostracism if their participation becomes public, which is why the centre emphasises confidentiality and discreet community outreach.

Funding continuity is perhaps the toughest risk. The pilot relies on a short-term grant and partner contributions; scaling the model would require steady funding and coordination with longer-term education and protection systems. Even with more money, replication needs careful adaptation — what works in one neighbourhood will need changes to fit another.

Despite those limits, the local staff and partners see a clear pathway forward: extend the pilot in the same community, document the outcomes, and use that evidence to persuade donors and local authorities to embed reparative approaches into wider schooling plans. Success is being measured in simple, human terms — regular attendance, reduced signs of distress, a child’s ability to read a sentence or laugh with a friend — and the teams are working to turn those measures into formal data for funders.

For now, the classroom’s most important role is emotional. For survivors who have known violence and instability, a place that treats them with patience and dignity can be the first step in rebuilding a life. The people running the programme say they have seen children reclaim small freedoms that look ordinary from the outside but are radical in the wake of trauma: choosing a pencil, sharing a joke, sleeping through the night. Those are the changes they hope will last.