Success Story 

A Story of Survival:
How a Little Push
Made the Difference 

Kano State, Nigeria October 2006  Amina Abdullahi, an eighteen year old polio victim, sat on a wooden stool in a crowded workshop. With a slight smile, she held a hand-dyed cotton cloth on its edge, steering it through the new sewing machine.  As she pushed the cloth, one could see that both her hands were slightly twisted. She walked favoring her left leg.

Amina is just one of thousands of polio survivors.  Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause crippling paralysis.  "Nigeria currently accounts for 70% of the global cases of polio, and over 80% of these cases are in five northern states of the country", according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The polio-handicapped are confronted with discrimination in Nigeria and find it difficult to lead a normal life. For Amina, the situation worsened when her father passed away. She became the sole provider for her family, but, though she wanted to train as a tailor, nobody would let her practice in their shop. "I gave up hope of ever learning anything, as no one will accept me and with my father’s demise, the future looked bleak," she said.  Social discrimination has led many polio-handicapped like Amina to resort to "street begging", a common site in most Nigerian cities. 

In 2003, Amina learned of the Kano Polio Victims Trust Association (KPVTA), an organization set up 26 years ago to provide financial and technical support, including vocational training, for its polio-disabled members so they can engage in cottage industries to support their families.  Hoping to learn new skills and then set-up her own shop, Amina joined 30 other women in the tailoring class where they took turns practicing on only two sewing machines.  They often had to wait around for as long as four days to get a chance at the machines.  Most of them gave up.

Learning of the situation, the USAID-funded COMPASS Project provided the Association with new equipment, including three welding machines, ten sewing machines, five knitting machines and two specialized embroidery machines.  The news spread fast among members of the Association and Amina and most of the other trainees returned to the center, along with 23 new members in the tailoring classes.

In August 2006, Amina learned she had been admitted into the advanced vocational skills acquisition training. "I was filled with tears," she said "when my name was called as one of those to benefit from the special training." With only three weeks in this advanced class, she has improved her sewing skills markedly and is confident she can use them to fulfill her dream of opening her own shop.