A school scheme to educate poor children and clean up pollution in Lagos brought hope. Now its future is at risk.

Lagos, Nigeria – Mujanatu Musa’s one-roomed apartment – built mainly of rusty iron sheets – cuts a sorry sight in Ajegunle, a sprawling slum in Nigeria’s economic hub of Lagos.

Flanked by old, decrepit buildings, the makeshift structure shelters the 40-year-old mother and her three children, Abdulrahman, 12, and 9-year-old twins, Abdulwaris and Abdulmalik.

Since Musa and her husband separated more than three years ago, the family has been living on her irregular earnings of about 2,000 naira ($1.30) a day from hairdressing work. In dry spells when there are no customers, she is forced to borrow money from neighbours, she said.

Times are tough for the family, who fit into the fold of the 133 million, or 63 percent, of Nigeria’s population living in multidimensional poverty, according to government data.

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