History
Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) Maiduguri, formerly known as Social Welfare Programme, was founded in March 1971 with late Rev. Fr. Dennis Coleman as the first Coordinator. This was established as a response to the Federal Government’s call for national reconstruction and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the 1967 Nigerian Civil war (R. Hickey, Heralds of Christ to Borno: The missionary Years, 2018, P121). The Commission was established to promptly respond to the needs of the most vulnerable within the diocese in accordance with the Catholic social teachings.
JDPC was involved in the provision of food aid, potable water and later in livelihood support programmes. JDPC relied on foreign assistance with MISEREOR – an agency for the German Bishops’ Conference for development, as the main funder.
2015 marked the many strategic turning points when the organization was registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). This ushered the organization into new eras of collaborations and partnerships to provide humanitarian services to the less privileged, vulnerable and the marginalised within the Diocese. These services include but are not limited to hygiene promotion, food security, agriculture, livelihood, nutrition, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH).
Similarly, the 2017 partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in the Feed the Future Nigerian Livelihoods project (FTF) Northeast Expansion marked another turning point for JDPC Maiduguri. This project became the first of the many projects that lead to JDPC Maiduguri’s partnership expansion with organizations such as the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Caritas Germany, Christian Solidarity International and more projects with Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria (CCFN). Consequently, these partnerships strengthened JDPC Maiduguri’s capacity leading to rapid growth in staffing, office infrastructure, finance processes and procedure, administration, drafting and implementation of relevant organizational policies. Since then, the organisation has been able to successfully expand its scope in project implementation, capacity strengthening, and has achieved a major milestone of securing direct funding from Caritas Germany in 2020.
It is important to note that these achievements were attained not without challenges. These challenges include insecurity, inability to secure direct donor-funding, interferences by local community leaders, high inflation rate, staff turn-over, competition from other NGOs among others. These have not in any way deterred the resolve of the organisational spirit, however, it challenged the organizational management to create measures on how to handle the aforementioned challenges through engaging in sensitization activities to community leaders, discussing with partner organisations, participation in sector meetings among others. These challenges have holistically strengthened the organization’s capacity in executing its mission and vision.