Nigerian girl wins Amnesty International Award, with her documentary on Almajiris.

Yesterday, 26-year-old Temitope Kalejaiye,
won the best student documentary at the 2016
Amnesty International Awards. Kalejaiye, who
had her MA in Broadcast Journalism from
Nottingham Trent university and BA in Mass
Communication from Ahmadu Bello university,
Zaria, won the award with her documentary
"Almajiri is begging" which was her final year
project at NTU.
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Here is a synopsis of the documentary: "In
Northern Nigeria, millions of children live in
the Almajiri system. By night they memorise
the Qur'an, and by day they beg for food and
money. We meet the Almajiri children trapped
in a cycle of poverty and extremist influences.
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They wake up as early as 3am or 4am to
begin their Qur'an studies until dawn at about
7am", describes teacher Abdullahi Lakare. In
Northern Nigeria, over 7 million children live
outside of the official school system. Instead,
they are sent to schools where they learn to
recite the Qu'ran and are forced to beg. .
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But these children are in danger of being used
for criminal activities, and they are even
recruited into terrorist groups such as Boko
Haram. As a State Education Officer describes,
"If you can give them money to spend,
whatever you ask them to do they will do it."