The app that saved 1,000 Nigerian children
Children in Bagega, Nigeria, the community most affected by lead contamination.
BAGEGA, Nigeria — Profits from Nigeria's wealth of oil are reserved for a select few. The others, particularly the 60 percent who still live on less than $1 a day, have to look elsewhere.
About six years ago, during the global recession, the price of gold nearly tripled, and illicit artisanal gold miners in northern Nigeria made more profits than ever before. Enthusiastic and eager to make more money, the miners acquired tools to process more gold, bringing ores into their homes.
That’s when the birds vanished.
A 2013 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention states, “In early 2010, ducks began to disappear in northern Nigeria. People would later report that they noticed there were fewer ducks in the area, but no one thought it was important at the time.”
As it turned out, the disappearing ducks were a sign of an ecological disaster.
Several communities had succumbed to an outbreak of lead poisoning, induced by gold miners unknowingly bringing dust filled with lead into residential areas of their communities.
The Nigerian government allocated $5.4 million to help Bagega, the community most affected by the contamination. But months after its initial promise, the Nigerian federal government still had not released the funds. More than 400 children died in the community.
The crisis caught the attention of Hamzat Lawal, a recent college graduate working in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. He launched a web-based app called Follow The Money to track the government’s promised allocation.
In partnership with The GroundTruth Project, Chika Oduah produced a multimedia story as a 2014 grant recipient of the African Story Challenge. The African Story Challenge is a project by the African Media Initiative (AMI), the continent’s largest association of media owners and operators with support from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
See the complete multimedia project, "The App That Saved 1,000 Children."
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