International Peacemaking Alum Changing Lives in Nigeria

Image

Using many of the skills he learned at Hartford International University, former International Peacemaking student Njehntengazoka Danladi '20 has founded an interreligious NGO for children called the Lighthouse Child Development Centre. This organization “engages children in activities that promote national unity, religious peace, communal coexistence and good governance for a better Nigeria." 

Northern Nigeria experiences religious, communal, and political conflicts. Organizations and initiatives there promote interreligious dialogue between adults in Nigeria, but not children. The Lighthouse is the first organization to focus on reorienting children who grow up in the midst of Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim violence. Danladi’s mission is to write a new narrative in children’s minds, so they can live peacefully and love their peers regardless of their faith orientation. 

"HIU empowered me mentally to think differently towards valuing and embracing diversities. Contextualizing my knowledge, I saw a future of a peaceful Nigeria beginning with the child," he said. "If only we can mold the minds of the children, provide new perspectives for them, then we can save the future."

The Lighthouse recently organized an interfaith Eid celebration in Kaduna, Nigeria, where at least 200 Christian and Muslim faith children gathered to watch an animated film and eat together. The aim was to foster acceptance and tolerance among children of different religions. 

"The fear of what will happen in the future has made us, the [Lighthouse] Child Development Center, come up with child interfaith relationships, where children of different faiths will come together and interact and love one another, and learn to stay with each other," Danladi told a television station in a recent interview shown below.

He strongly believes that raising children as advocates of peace will result in a better Nigeria when they become adults. The Lighthouse organization has ambitions to reach children throughout Nigeria.