The Aliston Care Foundation is to sponsor and return 1,000 out-of-school children to school in 2025.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Aliston Care Foundation, Engr. Emmanuel Oche John, stated this at the annual stakeholders and fund-raising conference for primary education and out-of-school children in Nigeria.
Speaking at the event held in Abuja yesterday, Oche said, “It is no doubt that our society is plagued with intractable challenges ranging from disease, poverty, insecurity to underdevelopment. The consequences of these are seen in the 4.5 per cent unemployment rate, rural urban migration with residents who cannot afford urban life but cannot also stay in the villages due to insecurity, lack of and poor infrastructure especially transportation and mobility, and general poor living conditions where over 50 per cent of the population lives below, poverty line.
“It is therefore no surprise that Nigeria accounts for 15 per cent of global out of school children with those in the primary school age of five to 14 accounting for 10.5 million children.
Doing nothing tangible to get these children back to school means entrenchment of raw poverty, criminality and sustained under development.
“It is in the light of this that Aliston Care Foundation amongst other laudable initiatives took the burden to get out-of-school children back to school. This is one of our key objectives and we do this through supporting indigent students providing uniforms, books, other materials and scholarships that returns out of school children back to school. We work with the schools management and authorities, the traditional rulers and community readers to identify the pupils and give them hope for a brighter future.
So far we have held outreaches and returned back to school 268 Number of pupils in the past year, the pupils are from FCT, Nasarawa and Kaduna neighborhoods. This year we have a target of 1,000 out of school children to be returned back to school. Within this, we have identified 121 to be kitted and returned back to school in the first phase by next week Monday.”
Chairman of the occasion, Hon. Gaza Jonathan Gbefwi, (Member, House of Rep.,) who was represented by Comrade Grema Bukar Mohammad, emphasised the importance of collective efforts in tackling the menace of out-of-school children, while reiterating his unflinching support and commitment towards addressing same, especially in the Keffi/Karu/Kokona Federal Constituency, in Nasarawa State.
The guest lecturer, Dr Yusuf Imran, Dean Student Affairs, Mewar International University gave a vivid picture through his elaborate teaching on the possible threats of ignoring out of school children in our society, not leaving out measures and importance of providing solutions/ way forward.
The event also witnessed the call for support by well meaning partners for the foundation to continue to return more children back to school.
