Children’s Day: CBN Celebrates Orphans, Other Less Privileged Students

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has joined the rest of the world to mark 2023 Children’s Day commemoration with a celebration of orphans and other less privileged children in the country as part of its corporate social responsibility.

700 children from five Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary schools in Abuja and five orphanage homes were assembled in Abuja for celebration of the global event and be educated about financial literacy programmes of the apex bank, including how to develop savings culture and financial management in line with the central bank’s financial inclusion drive.

On her part, assistant director at the bank, Victoria Osuashi Amaegbo who said the bank was introducing the young students on how to save money and other products of the bank, said this year celebration of the International Children’s Day is special because it is deliberately designed to celebrate the lowly, the orphans, less privileged and the uncelebrated Nigerian children.

“We found out that every year, most schools go for match pass, parade. And we asked ourselves, who is celebrating the orphans in the society? So, we put this event together to celebrate the uncelebrated,” she stated.

The theme for the 2023 Children’s Day is “Investing in our future means investing in our children”. The CBN call it CSR social engagement with the less privileged children. It is basically to sit down and have fun with them.

“Today being Children’s Day, we need to carry the children along. We want to make them happy. We want to make them have some kind of belonging in the society. That’s the reason we decided to bring these children out like any other child celebrating this children’s day to also have fun and enjoy themselves,” head, ESSRD at CBN, Mrs. Hauwa Ishaku said at the event in Abuja yesterday, adding, “It is for us to celebrate the children. It’s their day. We need to make them happy and have some kind of belonging in the society.”

Some of the students who spoke on the sideline of the event expressed hope of getting basic knowledge of financial management aside the events lined up for them to catch fun and mingle with their peers from other schools.

Mrs. Ishaku said the central bank is also using the opportunity to have some talks with the students about financial inclusion and how they can also invest in their future with parts of the little money that are allocated to them.

“We are investing in their future with knowledge of financial literacy and about financial management in the society. As they keep on growing up, they will also know how to manage their finances. That is part of the SabiMONI programme of the CBN,” she stated. The apex bank also gave gifts and small monies for the students to buy some items or food stuffs that can take them for at least three months.

The CBN recently launched its SabiMONI e-Learning Platform, a fully digital platform that provides knowledge base for financial literacy. The product is particularly targeting students of young age and other segments of the society who are excluded from the financial system.