Dr Rebecca Dali had set up CCEPI in 2009, the year Boko Haram’s insurgency in Borno State began. PICTURE: World Watch Monitor.
A Nigerian aid worker who works with victims of Boko Haram’s insurgency in the north-east has won the 2017 UN Sérgio Vieira de Mello Prize.
Dr Rebecca Dali, executive director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI), won it because her centre is “at its best” in caring for women, children, and orphans, the most vulnerable populations in north-east Nigeria, ravaged by eight years of violence.
Dr Dali, as wife of Rev Samuel Dali, formerly president of the Church of the Brethren (Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria, or EYN) – to which most of the 276 Chibok girls belonged, was amongst the first to visit their parents after the mass kidnap in April, 2014.
The Sergio Vieira de Mello award is conferred biennially, to draw the world’s attention to the unnoticed efforts by individuals, groups and organisations “doing something special and unique to reconcile people and parties in conflict”.
Dr Dali had set up CCEPI in 2009, the year Boko Haram’s insurgency in Borno State began, before its violence later spread to Yobe and Adamawa States, and neighboring countries (Niger, Chad and Cameroon).
Her letter announcing the award read: “This is in recognition of the courageous efforts of you and the CCEPI to promote the re-integration of returning women abducted by the Boko Haram group back into their local communities. As the communities resisted their re-integration, your negotiation skills and reconciliation efforts played an important role in their successful re-integration.”
The CCEPI has been taking care of children born of girls abducted by Boko Haram who are referred to as “bad blood children” in the southern part of Borno State.
Hanson Tamfu, of the UNHCR, said that Dr Dali has been instrumental to the re-integration of women who lived with Boko Haram in spite of resistance from the integrating communities, as she advocated against the double victimisation of the women.
According to him, Dr Dali was the first humanitarian actor to set up a livelihood programme for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees in Madagali and Michika local government areas of Adamawa. He said that the centre took the risk of reaching areas considered inaccessible and dangerous at the peak of the Boko Haram activities at a time when other NGOs could not.
Originally from Borno State herself, Dr Dali had shared with World Watch Monitor her passion about the plight of women on a number of occasions.
“Widows are particularly vulnerable in north-east Nigeria, the area most affected by the Boko Haram insurgency. For many, the loss of their husband is the beginning of hardship for them and their children, who may not then be able to get an education”.
She has also personally experienced the hardships of people in north-east Nigeria. During the weekend of 6th to 7th September, 2014, Boko Haram militants took over the town of Michika, in Adamawa, forcing Dr Dali and and her husband to flee.
“I dedicate this award to my son Timothy, who disappeared in the Jos crisis (21 March 2011), to the abducted Chibok girls and many who are still in captivity. Praying for all of you to come home. And if you are gone in the process of suffering, until we meet in heaven where there is no injustice and threat but everlasting peace”, she wrote on Facebook.
The CCEPI works with international organisations including the UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and has gained trust among local communities.
The award ceremony will take place on 21st August in Geneva during the celebration of the World Humanitarian Day.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian UN diplomat, died when his Iraq office was blown up in 2003.
