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By Chinenye Anuforo
New Horizons Nigeria, an information and communications technology (ICT) training institute, has unveiled a N50 million corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme aimed at taking Almajiri children off the streets and equipping them with income-generating digital and technical skills.
Almajiri are a group of children, mostly boys, found predominantly in northern Nigeria who leave their homes to study Islam under traditional Quranic teachers. The system has been criticized for exposing children to poverty, child labour, and lack of formal education in subjects like math, science and literacy.
However, New Horizons’ initiative, tagged Almajiris-to-Tech, is designed to train Almajiri youths as computer and electronics technicians, in a move to contribute to job creation, improved security and higher productivity in the economy.
Speaking on the programme, the Managing Director of New Horizons Nigeria, Mr. Tim Akano, said the continued presence of Almajiri children on the streets was not a failure of the children but a reflection of wider social neglect.
“God has not created any human being useless. Every person is born with dignity and the right to pursue a meaningful life. The Almajiri challenge cannot be solved by force alone; it requires empowerment, reorientation and opportunity,” Akano said.
The scheme is a 90-day intensive training programme scheduled to begin on January 19, 2026, at the New Horizons Training Centre in Abuja. Participants will be trained in the repair and maintenance of laptops, desktop computers, mobile phones, televisions, projectors, radios, fans, inverters and other electronic devices.
They will also be introduced to environmentally sustainable practices, including the reuse of scrap laptop batteries and other electronic waste to build rechargeable fans, UPS systems and inverter batteries.
According to the organisers, the first week of the programme will focus on mindset reorientation. Sessions will be led by a psychologist and an Islamic cleric and conducted in Hausa, with the aim of steering participants away from begging, violence and hopelessness, and towards discipline, confidence, patriotism and lawful living.
The programme will run in two batches. Ten slots have been allocated to the People Expertise and Excellence Foundation (PEEF), a non-governmental organisation involved in skills acquisition and human capital development, while another 10 slots have been assigned to Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (Yayi), a long-time advocate of youth empowerment who has previously facilitated the training of thousands of youths through New Horizons.
Akano said extending Senator Adeola’s intervention to Northern Nigeria through the Almajiri scheme would help broaden the impact of youth empowerment efforts across the country.
At the end of the training, graduates will be supported with job placement and work locations and formally engaged as New Horizons Computer Technicians. The best-performing participant will also receive full funding and a complete set of tools to start an independent business.
New Horizons said the ₦50 million committed to the project would cover feeding, logistics, training materials, T-shirts and working tools for participants. The organisation noted that it had previously run similar empowerment programmes, including during the Federal Government’s Amnesty Programme and World Bank-supported youth training schemes.
A practical competition will also be held at the end of the programme, with participants divided into teams to build and brand their own personal computers as part of their final assessment.
In addition, graduates will be enrolled on a dedicated technical portal containing their profiles, certification details and contact information to help connect them with potential customers and employers.
Akano described the programme as part of New Horizons’ contribution to the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Agenda, arguing that productive engagement of young people was critical to national stability.
“From the first week of April 2026, Nigerians should be able to meet these young men and women fixing phones, laptops, televisions and other electronics. Giving them skills and work is one of the surest ways to tackle poverty, insecurity and low productivity at the same time,” he said.
New Horizons added that a second phase of the Almajiri-to-Tech scheme is planned for the second quarter of 2026 and called on government agencies, development partners and civil society organisations to collaborate in scaling up the initiative.
