The story of Father Bonny, the Nigerian priest who accompanies children from former Biafra to university
With Azione Verde, an association based in Matera, Don Bonifacio creates a bridge between Italia and Nigeria, providing education for the youngest children and the redemption of a poor territory, despite its large oil reserves
Since Esther has been living in college her life has changed. She attends school and the teachers say she is doing well. She has forgotten hunger and the looming risk of many diseases caused by malnutrition. He has overcome the shock of the loss of his father, who was killed by a commando of jihadist guerrillas from the north. Seven years ago Father Bonny asked her mother to let her go, and now that she is 14 she attends the secondary school of Azione Verde, an international humanitarian organisation, recognised by our Foreign Ministry, founded in 2002 in Matera by the Nigerian priest Ifeanyi Boniface Duru. A story of a strip of sub-Saharan Africa that is also partly Italian.
Esther and the other children of Green Action
Two more years and Esther will enter the sixth form, i.e. the last two years of secondary school, and finally university. She wants to study medicine and will be able to do so there, on the campus built by Fr Bonifacio, where the degree course is scheduled to open. In the municipality of Amaigbo, State of Imo, Catholic Diocese of Orlu, in a rural area of 75 hectares, there are university faculties, laboratories, canteen, lecture hall, accommodation, sports centre, church, library and polyclinic. Azione Verde University, just inaugurated and certified by the Nigerian Ministry of Education, is a citadel open to over 5000 students (about 20% of the entire local population) studying computer science, art, management and social sciences.
Father Bonny and the Harmonic Growth of the Person
"I have dedicated my life to this mission, to emancipate my people by promoting education, but with a holistic approach,' Don Bonifacio explains with satisfaction, 'our method takes into account the whole person. A pedagogical model that aims at harmonious growth, in which learning is combined with relational and emotional experience. This is how our children will contribute to the development of our territories'.
Republic of Biafra wiped off the map
The Green Action residential complex stands in the area of the former republic of Biafra, where the last stages of the Nigerian civil war took place in the late 1960s. Biafra and the Igbo people demanded independence but did not get it and instead suffered the extermination of two million civilians, including the Christian Igbo minorities in the north. And they faced a severe famine. The vast oil resources in the territory are still managed by foreign companies, while the Igbo would have liked to keep the proceeds of extraction. Thus the conflict has never ended and Biafra has been wiped off all maps.
Don Boniface, from Nigeria to Rome
"I learnt generosity from my father who was a good trader, loyal and honest. With him I used to cycle around the village markets. He used to tell me that when you give to others, you become rich,' says Fr Boniface who, at a very young age, chose the path of priesthood at St Mary's seminary in Umuowa, later attending various ecclesiastical institutes, until he graduated in Philosophy and Theology at Bigard Mamorial Seminary in Ikot, an offshoot of the Pontifical University of Rome, in south-east Nigeria.
