Designing Pastoral Care Programmes for Internally Displaced Persons in North East Nigeria

The Boko Haram insurgency has created one of sub-Saharan Africa's largest populations of internally displaced persons in North East Nigeria, many of whom are Christians who have lost homes, livelihoods, and family members. Designing effective pastoral care programmes for this population is a critical and urgent ministry development task. This study develops a comprehensive pastoral care programme for Christian internally displaced persons in North East Nigeria. A programme design methodology was adopted, incorporating trauma assessment interviews with 40 Christian IDPs in camps in Borno and Adamawa States, focus groups with fifteen camp pastors and chaplains, and consultations with ten humanitarian organisations working in the IDP context. Trauma theology frameworks, including Shelly Rambo's theology of survival and Harvey Raber's pastoral trauma care model, were reviewed and contextualised for the North East Nigerian IDP experience. The designed programme includes seven components: initial spiritual and psychosocial assessment, community lament and grief rituals adapted for the Christian IDP context, trauma-informed Bible study methodology, restorative pastoral conversations, community reintegration spirituality, children and youth ministry, and camp pastor supervision and self-care. Expert validation by humanitarian theologians and IDP programme coordinators confirmed contextual relevance. The study recommends adoption by the Borno State Christian Association of Nigeria for deployment in registered IDP camps, with evaluation metrics integrated into the programme structure.

Keywords: pastoral care, internally displaced persons, trauma ministry, North East Nigeria, programme design