Turning Lemons into Lemonade: 25-Year-Old Lady in Abuja IDP Camp Learns Tailoring, Charges Up to N2k Per Dress
After Boko Haram terrorists turned her community in Borno state into a hell on earth, Ruth Paul, a 25-year-old married lady, and others fled for their lives.
Ruth found her way into the bony, dry arms of Wassa Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) Camp in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city. She has lived there for five years.
Source: Original
With her tailoring job, Ruth defies the odds to make a living and assist her husband in the camp, which is now their home. Thanks to the terrorists!
Life in Wassa IDP camp
Wassa IDP Camp is a bit far from the city centre and hardly gets any attention from the government, according to the camp leader Geoffrey Bitrus.
PAY ATTENTION: Join Legit.ng Telegram channel! Never miss important updates!
The IDP has more than 2,000 houses, 897 households and about 5,776 occupants from Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
Though there are electric polls sighted in the community, there are no wires to connect electricity. Women, including Ruth, cook with firewood.
The camp has just one mobile clinic, donated by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, circa 2017.
Source: UGC
One volunteer and a health worker provided by the local government authority work in the mobile clinic with no drugs.
Sometimes the health worker uses his money to buy drugs, while residents buy from him, Bitrus told a group of journalists, including Legit.ng's Nurudeen Lawal, who had visited the camp as part of the training on Solutions Journalism organised by the Nigeria Health Watch.
Before Dogara's donation, the IDPs used to go to a "Chemist".
In a 2019 research paper, Bitiyong Zemo J. Amina and Sheriff Ghali Ibrahim wrote that the FCT (Abuja) authority does not own "the crisis of IDPs within their midst and not according them their rights as full citizens of the federal republic of Nigeria with the right to settle anywhere within the country's territory."
Resultantly, the FCT authority does not make any budget provisions regarding the IDPs.
And this is the root cause of the inability to provide them with medical facilities, water, electricity and other amenities.
Wassa Mobile health clinic fails Ruth's daughter
In 2021, Ruth lost of one her two kids.
The four-year-old daughter fell ill; she stopped eating and started throwing up. She was taken to the clinic but later referred to other health centres in neighbouring communities. The innocent child eventually died. Within two weeks.
Ruth didn't understand what exactly killed her child. She said the health workers mentioned something about the cause of the death, but she didn't understand.
She only attended primary school.
Wassa IDP residents make ends meet through subsistence farming
Around 11 am on Friday, April 2, when we visited, Ruth's husband had already gone to the farm, like many other men in the camp.
Bitrus, the camp leader, who hails from Pulka in Gwoza LGA, Borno state, said many residents in the community make a living through subsistence farming.
They plant beans, groundnut, sweet potato, etc. They mainly eat the farm produce but sell some to get money to cater to other responsibilities.
Bitrus himself has been in the camp since 2014. He escaped an attack by the Boko Haram terrorists in Pulka and fled to Cameroon before finding his way to Abuja.
N1,500 per dress, N2,000 for skirt and blouse/rapper: Ruth's exploits in tailoring
Against all odds, Ruth learned tailoring informally in the community and now has a small shop attached to their house.
Source: Original
The 25-year-old mother of one said she likes tailoring because it's easier and less stressful than farming; she also farms a bit to support the earnings from the shop.
On a regular, Ruth said she makes at least two dresses in a day and has customers come into the shop once.
She charges N1,500 per dress and N2,000 for a skirt and blouse/rapper.
While Ruth's venture into tailoring in the camp is commendable, the main challenge remains patronage, especially in a community where the majority barely eke out a living through subsistence farming.
Source: Legit.ng
