12/05/2025
Title: ALMAJIRI – The Future Remains
Captured: Cyrus Throne
In the heart of Northern Nigeria, on sun-scorched streets lined with whispers of forgotten promises, a boy bends over a rusted wheelbarrow, his hands hardened by a life far too mature for his age. Another clutches scraps in one hand and survival in the other. They are not just children; they are Almajirai — a generation carved out of a cultural legacy now blurred by neglect and hardship.
These images freeze a reality most pass by without pause: boys in oversized tunics and second-hand sandals, toiling through refuse and hunger, their childhoods exchanged for endurance. Their lives unfold between mosques and streets, with knowledge sought in fragments and dreams often deferred.
“Almajiri – The Future Remains” is more than a title. It's a question — a challenge. What happens when a nation watches its future wade through trash and fend for dignity? When the hands that should hold pencils and paintbrushes grip wheelbarrow handles and scavenged plastic?
Yet in their eyes, still, flickers something unbreakable: resilience. These boys are not broken; they are waiting. Waiting to be seen, nurtured, included. Their potential, though buried beneath layers of hardship, remains. If only we dare to dig deeper — past stigma, past apathy — and remember that no nation thrives when its children are left behind.
The Almajiri boy is not a burden. He is a seed — and the future still belongs to him.