About us
Giving back through education and human capital.
Hillare Educational Foundation (HEF) is a non-profit, non-governmental charity founded to promote literacy and provide easy access to quality education among the poor, especially Fulani nomads.
Our story
It began with wheelbarrow pushers in an Abuja market.
Our founder, Maryam Umar Aliyu (Maryam Fulani), was born in a Ruga Fulani settlement called Zuzu, in Birniwa-Hadejia.
She spent her early life and schooling in Kano, then studied at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration. She began her career in 2014 with the Nigerian real estate firm Brains & Hammers, later moving to Bilaad Realty Nigeria Ltd as a Marketing and Investment Adviser. Today she is Chief Executive Officer of Hillare Company and Services, a property development and agency company in Abuja.
HEF started as an idea during her Community Development Service, part of the compulsory National Youth Service Corps: a basic adult education programme for the wheelbarrow pushers inside Garki Ultra Modern Market, Abuja. That programme became HEF’s first activity, and every project since has been built on its experience.
Registered in 2021
In 2021, Maryam founded Hillare Educational Foundation and registered it with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria. Its purpose: to give back to her society and achieve a lifelong dream of empowering the less privileged, especially the girl child, orphans, nomadic children and divorcee women, through education and human capital.
Since then, HEF has built and equipped a block of two classrooms for Mabam Rural Community School, in a Ruga Fulani settlement in Birniwa-Hadejia, Jigawa State, and has started an Annual Enrolment Programme into adult education for wheelbarrow pushers, Okada riders and petty traders.
Our mission
What we set out to do
Education sits at the centre of our mission, alongside the livelihoods and living conditions of the communities we serve.
Learning
- Provide easy access to quality education for vulnerable communities in Northern Nigeria.
- Promote women and girl-child education.
- Partner with rural schools and provide teaching aids, to promote social change in marginalised or abandoned communities.
Livelihoods
- Empower women to be self-reliant through vocational training and skills acquisition.
- Reduce poverty through human capital development.
Community
- Provide potable drinking water to rural communities.
- Enlighten nomads on the importance of modern grazing systems, and on why settling in one place can better their lives and those of their children.
Our goals
We work to combat illiteracy, reduce poverty, empower women and assist the vulnerable and less privileged in our target communities.
Our approach
How we reach our objectives
Our strategy includes, but is not limited to, the following.
- Promote adult education programmes.
- Provide general vocational training and skills acquisition.
- Provide study bursaries for poor and needy students at tertiary level.
- Partner and collaborate with government and non-governmental organisations.
- Create access to capital.
- Provide learning tools and teaching equipment to existing rural schools.
- Run campaigns and sensitisation programmes.
Our team
The people behind HEF
Working alongside our founder, Maryam Umar Aliyu.
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Shafa’atu Saidu Abubakar
Project Manager
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Hafsat Muhammad Aliyu
Executive Assistant
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Shettima Dan-Azumi, Esq.
Legal Adviser
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Aisha Muhammad Aliyu
Health Intervention Officer
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Haruna Lawal
Public Relations Manager
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Abbas Hammaseyo
Research Assistant
How our projects are run
Our projects are delivered by a project team with these roles and responsibilities.
- Team Leader / Project Coordinator
- Overall coordination, leadership and facilitation
- Programme Manager
- Facilitating programme success
- Project Managers
- Programme monitoring and direction
- Technical Partners
- Technical support services
- Secretary
- Keeps all records and signs all mail and transactions