Nigeria: From streets to classrooms: Full scholarships granted to 40 street children through DAM Foundation 2026 — A different kind of giving

By Zuleihat Owuiye, Mamos Nigeria

Throughout his remarkable journey as a humanitarian, Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi has consistently demonstrated that true philanthropy is not measured by the size of a gift, but by the depth of its impact on human lives. Over the years, he has channelled resources toward higher education, funding university students and supporting those pursuing postgraduate Master’s Degrees through the DAM Foundation.

These were meaningful, life-changing investments in young people who had already found their footing on the path forward.

But his most recent act of generosity is different. It is something altogether deeper, more tender, and more transformative.

Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha has awarded full scholarships to 40 children who were found on the streets, without shelter, without stability, and without hope. Through the DAM Foundation, he has not merely funded their education. He has handed them the most precious of gifts, a future.

University students already have direction. These children had nothing, no compass, no road, no light. Dr. Mustapha gave them all three.

To appreciate the full weight of what Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha has done, one must understand the critical difference between supporting a university student and rescuing a child from the streets.

When you award a scholarship to a university student or a Master’s degree candidate, you are investing in someone who has already demonstrated resilience and ambition. They have navigated their way through primary and secondary schooling. They have applied, been accepted, and arrived at the threshold of higher learning. They have families, communities, identity, and a sense of self. What they lack is financial support and Dr. Mustapha has provided that generously for many such individuals over the years.

The 40 children he has now embraced are in an entirely different situation. These are children who were found on the streets some having known no stable home, no classroom, no mentor, and no guardian to guide them. Their daily reality was survival. 

Education was not a distant dream; it was an incomprehensible luxury. Society had, in many ways, already passed them by.

To reach down and lift such a child to enroll them in school, clothe them for learning, equip them with every tool they need, and tell them that the world has not forgotten them is an act of profound grace. Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha has done exactly that, for 40 children at once.

These are not children who needed a hand extended. They needed someone to come all the way down to where they were and carry them.

Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha and the DAM Foundation understood that enrolling a child in school is only the beginning. True empowerment requires equipping a child completely, so that they can walk into a classroom without embarrassment, without lack, and with the confidence that they belong.

Each of the 40 scholarship beneficiaries received a comprehensive package of school materials and necessities, including:

Textbooks covering all subjects required 

School bags, study and fitting, so every child could carry their materials with pride

Notebooks giving each child a blank page to begin writing their own story.

Writing materials pens, pencils, rulers, and all classroom essentials.

School uniforms, ensuring that each child enters the classroom looking and feeling like they belong.

Full tuition coverage, for the entirety of their educational journey under the scholarship.

This attention to detail reflects something important: Dr. Mustapha does not give half-heartedly. He does not open a door and leave a child to figure out how to walk through it. He opens the door, prepares the path, and walks with them. Every item provided was carefully considered to ensure these children would not face a single day of school in want or in shame.

The Magnitude of This Transformation

Forty children. Each one of them carries a story of hardship, of uncertainty, of mornings without meals and nights without safety. The streets are a harsh teacher, and the lessons they impart are ones no child should have to learn.

Yet today, each of these 40 children wakes up knowing they have a school to go to. They have a bag on their back, a book in their hands, and a teacher waiting to guide them. They have been seen, valued, and invested in. That psychological shift from invisibility to significance is immeasurable.

Research consistently shows that when a child who has experienced homelessness or extreme poverty gains access to stable education, the long-term effects ripple outward across generations. These 40 children are not simply being educated they are being rescued from cycles of poverty that, without intervention, would have defined and confined their entire lives.

Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha, through the DAM Foundation, has interrupted that cycle. He has planted 40 seeds of possibility in soil that the world had long considered barren.

“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world, Nelson Mandela. 

Dr. Mustapha has placed that weapon in the hands of 40 children who had nothing else.

The DAM Foundation is the institutional vehicle through which Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha channels his vision of a more equitable and compassionate society. Far from a single act of giving, the Foundation represents an ongoing, structured commitment to human development across multiple levels.

At the tertiary level, the Foundation has long supported university undergraduates with tuition scholarships, enabling bright and ambitious young people to complete their degrees without the burden of financial anxiety. For those wishing to advance further, the Foundation has also extended scholarships to postgraduate students pursuing Master’s Degrees recognising that advanced learning produces the leaders, researchers, and professionals that communities need to thrive.

Now, the Foundation has expanded its reach in the most powerful direction possible downward, to the very roots of society. By targeting street children, the DAM Foundation is addressing educational inequality at its most fundamental level. 

It is saying, in the clearest possible terms, that no child is beyond the reach of compassion, and that every child regardless of their origin, regardless of what the streets have taken from them — deserves the chance to learn, to grow, and to dream.

This expansion of vision reflects the extraordinary moral character of Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha himself. A lesser philanthropist might focus on those closest to opportunity. Dr. Mustapha chooses to focus on those furthest from it.

There are many ways to measure wealth. Some measure it in assets, in property, in influence. Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha measures his in the number of lives he has changed and that number grows with every initiative of the DAM Foundation.

The university scholars who have benefited from his generosity carry forward a legacy of academic achievement. The Master’s degree holders who received his support are contributing to their fields and their communities. And now, 40 children who once had nothing are sitting in classrooms, pencils in hand, discovering for the first time the extraordinary world that knowledge opens up.

Years from now, some of those children may themselves become doctors, engineers, teachers, and leaders. Some may even return to give back to others the way Dr. Mustapha gave to them. That is the true compounding power of philanthropic investment, it does not merely solve a problem in the present. It plants a future that grows long after the giver has stepped back.

Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha’s legacy is not being written in stone or marble. It is being written in the hearts and futures of every child who will one day look back and say: someone believed in me when no one else did. Someone reached down and gave me a chance. Someone came, when the world had walked away.

The truest form of charity is not to give from your excess, it is to give to those from whom the world has already taken everything.

Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha’s work through the DAM Foundation is a powerful reminder that individual compassion, when given institutional form, can reshape the lives of the most vulnerable. It challenges all of us individuals, institutions, governments, and organisations to look toward those who are most forgotten and ask: what can I do?

He has shown us that a scholarship is more than financial aid. It is a declaration that a child matters, that their potential is real, and that the circumstances of their birth or misfortune do not define their destiny. He has said this not in words alone, but in the most powerful currency of all, action.

Forty children. Forty futures. Forty declarations of hope written by one man and one Foundation that refused to look away.