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A boy sits in a canoe in front of a shed built on a raft in the Makoko fishing community on the Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria February 29, 2016. Makoko, a vast slum of houses on stilts in a Lagos lagoon, now boasts a new school – pyramid-shaped, floating and capable of withstanding the waterways' extreme weather, it is a beacon of hope for the nearly 100,000 Nigerians who live there. With room for 100 pupils, the school – built with locally sourced wood and floating on hundreds of recycled plastic barrels – throws a spotlight on the poverty that pervades the commercial hub of Africa's most populous nation. Aid-funded Makoko Floating School offers free education to local children, most of whose parents fish for a living and who, like most of the megacity's 21 million residents, lack a reliable electricity and water supply. Makoko was established as a fishing village hundreds of years ago but now climate change and rapid urbanization are threatening its way of life. The school, designed by Nigerian architect Kunle Adeyemi, can adapt to changing water levels and was built specifically to withstand the storms and floods that are common in the four-month-long rainy season. (Photo by Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)
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