In the rural communities of Ohaozara LGA, most widowed households lose their main income the same month they lose a husband. What follows is predictable. Land and property often go to the late husband's family. The widow takes on farm work or petty trading that brings in a fraction of what the household had before. And within a term or two, the children are out of school — not because the family stopped valuing education, but because fees, uniforms and books have to compete with food.

​

Once a child drops out, they rarely return. Girls tend to be pulled out first and married early. Boys move into casual labour. Either way, the family's next generation starts adult life with the same limited options that made the original loss so hard to recover from.

​

Paying school costs is one of the few interventions that changes what happens twenty years from now, not just this month.