Mrs. Doris Yaro is the Chief Executive of Gabassawa, an NGO that champion’s free and comprehensive educa­tion for indigent children. In this chat, she opened up on how she developed her passion for women and children education. Excepts:
To you, who is a true Nigerian?
A true Nigerian is someone that is truthful and hardworking. He or she is one that contributes posi­tively to the development of our nation, Nigeria.
People go into creating NGOs for diverse reasons. What is your reason for floating yet another NGO?
For me, it is a passion, not just an NGO as people will call it. I started this as a pas­sion driven vocation way back when I graduated from school. It dates back to when I was doing my National Youths Service in Kaduna State. As at the time, I was passing through a village called Rido behind Kaduna Refinery when I saw children who looked so malnourished. I decided to trace them.
As I carefully followed them, we ended up in a small village where I saw both women and children in great sufferings. Right there, I decided within myself to do something that will bring a change, something that will alleviate their sufferings to the best of my strength. Now, that is my passion, because I hate to see women and children suffering. I love to see them enjoy the better life.
As at 1998, I started im­pacting on the lives of these women and their children, but by the 2002, my husband was transferred. We had to live Ka­duna for Lagos. Then, I came to Lagos and right there on my street, I often heard children making noise and loitering up and down the streets. Whenev­er I looked out, I always saw them around the waste bins playing and picking all manner of rubbish.
I wondered what on earth these children were doing around the waste bins when they should be in school hav­ing lessons? That led me to making more findings about them, and I found out that they were children from poor homes and were virtually living on the street. Coinci­dentally, they were children of northern origin.
I was so happy to have found them, so I continued im­pacting them as I did to those in Kaduna. We brought them together and registered 25 of them in schools. Now, we have over 1,486 of them in schools. Some of them are orphans, while others are children from the poorest of the poor. They were all vulnerable to a lot of social vices. We decided to break their vicious circle through education, because most of their parents were born as they were and they had no education, thus the only work they could do was maiguard (an Hausa word for gateman).
Now, we saw this as the fate awaiting these vulnerable children. Since then, we have been working to change them through proper education. One day, a female lawyer who fell in love with what I was doing met me and told me that I was doing an NGO. I quickly said to her, ‘no oh, I am not doing NGO, rather it is passion that I am doing.’
She advised and pestered me to run it as an NGO other­wise if problem erupt, I will be in great danger. And being a lawyer, she registered it as an NGO for me. If not for her, I had never thought or dreamt in my life of running an NGO. I thank the almighty God that today, we have a lot of them even at secondary school levels and we have wonderful teachers that groom so fast that in four years, they are set to write the common entrance ex­amination and they are doing great in terms of performance. I am always proud of them be­cause they are very intelligent students.
One thing you said that really touched me now is “breaking that vicious circle”. If you watch the home videos today, you will find out that whenever they want to refer to a gateman, they will always call north­ern names, such as Musa, Adamu or Muhammad. Thank you for breaking such poor fate for these Nigerian children.
You are welcome and thanks to you and True Nige­rians for recognising the little we do down here. It is my pas­sionate prayer that one they, some of them will become ministers, governors and sena­tors of the Federal Republic so that they will continue to change the ill fate of children of their kind. I truly do not know why things are going this way. Take a good look at them and see how beautiful and handsome they look and then add it up to their brilliant academic performance, then you will know how wonderful they are.
Sometimes, I do take my time to inquire from them what they will like to be in future and some will tell me, ‘Mummy, I want to be a doc­tor, some lawyers, bankers, engineers. And there was one little one who said to me, mummy. I want to be a billion­aire.’ Now this is a boy whose father and grandfather were gatemen already thinking on how to be a billionaire. Now the point is, if this child is not given the needed education, he would pursue his aims some other unholy ways.
One more thing I do from time to time is to teach them peaceful co-existence among themselves, because as you see, some of them are Mus­lims, while others are Chris­tians and yet they go to same school. We always teach them to accommodate each other. Most of them are from Borno State, and some are Kanuri, Gbura and Shuwa’aram. We have those from Kano, Zam­fara and Plateau states.
How do you relate with their parents, are they aware of what you are doing for their kids?
I relate very well with their parents, because like I told you, when I saw them, I traced them down to their parents. I found most of them in uncompleted buildings, and I had talks with their parents in Hausa language. For some of them, I started with their wives. I do go to them to weave my hair and during Ramadan, I always invite them to my house to break their fast. That was how I strengthened our relationship that has grown this far.
We always celebrate to­gether and I do not fail to share food items with them. One of them even told me that she was born here in Lagos by a father who worked as a gateman, and now her children have taken to her father’s gateman job for a profession.

Only proper education can save the North –Doris Yaro