My mom’s in Nigeria for the next couple weeks, as part of 16 person delegation from the grassroots organization Global Citizen Journey. Working with their African NGO counterpart, the Niger Delta Professionals for Development, they’ll be responding to a need local villagers had identified, building the Delta region’s first library and facilitating a reconciliation between previously warring tribes who share an interest in its construction.
“The villagers were very enthusiastic about it,” Wood said. “It was their idea.” But the unprecedented cooperation between former enemies has also attracted local attention, and a national Nigerian newspaper marked the groundbreaking with a headline that read, “Americans Break Wall of Jericho.”
This is a region of Nigeria, like so many African nations, that has seen huge profits exported from their land via multinational corporations, while local residents live in poverty. In Nigeria’s case, the resource is oil, which carries with it a host of other issues. For more on that, take a listen to this NPR series.
Articles about the trip here, here, and here. More Updates as they come.
