Saving Jamila: A story of local support in Nigeria

By Chima Onwe
Earlier this year, Hadiza Abubakar’s 18-month-old daughter, Jamila, began rejecting food and losing weight. Hadiza, 26, thought it was only a minor illness and treated her with traditional remedies.
But when Jamila began vomiting after every meal and continued losing weight, Hadiza grew desperate.
“Jamila didn’t eat,” Hadiza recalled. “She had no strength. I didn’t know what to do. I was holding her all the time.”
For weeks Hadiza sought help from neighbours and hospitals, but no one could diagnose or treat Jamila.
“The stress of watching my daughter’s health deteriorate made me lose my own appetite,” Hadiza shared. “My husband was worried and seeking help everywhere. I stopped eating because I was so scared my baby would die.”
Hadiza and her family have relocated twice in seven years. In 2014, to escape the escalating conflict between Government forces and non-State armed groups, they fled their hometown, New Marte, in Nigeria’s Borno State. They moved to Bakassi camp in the capital, Madiguri, in the same province. In 2021, following the camp’s closure as part of the Government’s efforts to make people more resilient, they moved to Dubai community in the same town.
“We could not return to New Marte because we heard reports of people being killed and abducted,” Hadiza said.
Without a stable income and access to food, Hadiza’s family struggled to make ends meet.

#Fighting for her child’s life
Fortunately, volunteers from Life at Best Development Initiative (LABDI), a local non-governmental organization supported by the OCHA-managed Nigeria Humanitarian Fund, visited Hadiza’s community to raise awareness about malnutrition. They informed mothers about the services available to help treat their children.
During this visit Hadiza learned about LABDI’s outpatient therapeutic programme, and she took Jamila there immediately.
Doctors diagnosed Jamila with moderate acute malnutrition and malaria.
She was treated for malaria and given ready-to-use therapeutic food, a peanut-based paste.
“I’m so happy now and excited because Jamila runs around the house,” Hadiza said. “Now I can focus on other things because she runs around and plays. That makes me so happy.”

#Using community-based solutions
Faced with dwindling funding, organizations such as LABDI are exploring ways to use local resources to address malnutrition.
“Given the multifaceted causes of malnutrition, it’s important that the response is equally comprehensive and spans multiple sectors,” explained Ladi Ezike, LABDI’s Nutrition Adviser. “This includes treatment as well as preventative measures. We are focusing more on preventive measures with support from the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund.”
LABDI runs weekly demonstration kitchens, where mothers learn new recipes for nutritious meals for their children.
Ladi added: “We educate mothers and organize them into support groups. We also appoint lead mothers, who meet with other women in their communities to discuss local methods of tackling malnutrition.”
Hadiza now participates in these support groups and never misses the weekly demonstration kitchens.
“I’ve learned how to prepare nutritious food for my family using vegetables I planted around our house,” she said.
#Gaps in malnutrition response
As the world marks World Food Day, Governments, international bodies and donors must take immediate and decisive action to ramp up support to end the conflict in north-east Nigeria, improving farmland security and providing the much-needed humanitarian assistance to save the lives of millions of children like Jamila.
In Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) states, recent flash floods and cholera outbreaks have exacerbated the region’s food and nutrition crisis. About 4.8 million people in the region face severe food insecurity, according to the Government-led Cadre Harmonisé food security analysis, completed in March 2024. This is the highest number recorded in six years. More than 230,000 children under age 5 are at risk of acute malnutrition and require urgent treatment. These alarming figures highlight the urgent need for continued humanitarian assistance and effective strategies to address the ongoing crisis.
The disruption of essential services has heightened the risk of severe acute malnutrition and other public health crises, threatening the resilience of food-insecure communities and straining nutrition resources.
The Nutrition Sector in the BAY states urgently needs at least US$4.2 million to prevent food shortages, and to rehabilitate damaged health and nutrition facilities.
Timely interventions will save lives and help rebuild the resilience of vulnerable communities.