“Favour Obonyilo is an indigene of the Otukpa community, a conflict-infested community in North-Central Nigeria, ravaged by internecine conflicts between indigenous Farmers and Fulani Herders. The conflict dynamics is exacerbated by the scarcity of water occasioned by the worsening impact of climate change and environmental degradation. Hence, my childhood was inundated with frequent displacements due to clashes between farmers and herders, natural disasters such as fire and flooding, and cholera outbreaks leading to the death of women and children.

Accordingly, I was inspired to study Geography for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Benue State University and the University of Ibadan. During this period, I founded Reclaim, an environmental advocacy group engaged in conflicts, climate risks and mitigation strategies in local communities across rural areas of North-Central Nigeria. The volunteers for Reclaim were drawn from different fields of human endeavour, including doctors, environmental scientists and nutritionists. The NGO successfully resolved conflicts between herders and farmers and led awareness campaigns on water scarcity, water-borne diseases, indiscriminate felling of trees, wild-life trafficking, and school enrolments for the girl child.

Indeed, with the escalation of the Boko Haram insurgency and bandits attacks in Northern Nigeria, Reclaim continued its support for the humanitarian interventions by the National Commission For Refugees Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons and Life’s Builders Initiative, an NGO that runs after school programs for IDPs in Abuja, where Reclaim teaches women soap and other sanitary products making skills. My extensive interest in Conflict Resolutions and Peaceful negotiations coupled with Humanitarian aid inspired me to put in my application for the European Union’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Degree Scholarship’s International Humanitarian Action Program in December 2020. By June 2021, I got selected for the grant and currently rounding up my first semester at the University of Warsaw, Poland where I have learned a lot about International and Non-International Armed Conflicts, Conduct of Hostilities, International Humanitarian Law, etc. I will be proceeding to Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany at the end of February for my second semester in pursuit of this course. The two-year programme sponsored by the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Scholarship is preparing me for future leadership roles in global peace, security, and justice.”