By Justina Auta
The Civitas Auxillium Foundation (CAF), an NGO, Wednesday, donated desks with chairs, books and writing materials to six schools inside Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Wasa District in the FCT.
The Chief Operations Officer and Founder of CAF, Mrs Elizabeth Duille, said the effort was part of the organisation’s “CAF-Kit a Child School Outreach Programme”, supported by Equipping the Needy Initiative, Abuja.
Duille said the initiative targets less privileged children, particularly those in IDP camps, to ensure they had access to quality education, educational materials to enable them to explore their potential and achieve their dreams.
The benefitting schools included Moving Star Academy, Tanzak Best Academy, Seat of Wisdom Academy, ECWA Zion Academy, Deseret Preston Academy and Well Bred Academy.
She said: “The aim of this organisation is to support vulnerable women and children, who have been victims of violent conflicts across Nigeria, and most of them reside in the IDP camps.
“There are over 5,000 IDPs residing in this camp.
“So, we selected six schools with an average of 800 pupils that we are currently working with.
“We identified their needs and discovered that there were no basic infrastructure in over 50 per cent of them. “They have no chairs, schoolbooks to write and, of course, textbooks.”
According to Duille, the foundation provided wooden desks with attached chairs, 2,000 notebooks and kits of writing materials, including biros, pencils, erasers for the schools.
“Our aim is to ensure that they access quality education and learn in an environment that is conducive, where they can actually sit on desks rather than the floors to learn,” she said.
She further said that the organisation also supports women in IDP camps with trainings, loans and equipment to enable them to source a living and ensure smooth transition back into society.
“We empower women at the IDP camps to ensure that they begin to have their lives back.
“Some actually do have skills but do not have resources to start up anything financially to cater to their families.
“We believe that everyone should have the dignity of earning and dignity of having to sustain himself or herself and their families.
“They can actually become able to move out of the camp and live in a society where there is dignity, where there is infrastructure and where they will not be having that stigma of saying we were in IDP camps,” Duille said.
A representative of Equipping the Needy Initiative, Mr Nathaniel Agu, reiterated their commitment to helping the needy, orphans and vulnerable groups in society.
“This will go along way in putting smiles on the faces of these children and I urge the government and other stakeholders to support them to make Nigeria a better place,” Agu said.
Speaking on behalf of the schools, Mr Abdullahi Atiku of Tanzak Best Academy expressed appreciation to the foundation for its donation and efforts in ensuring that the less privileged students could also achieve academic excellence.
Atiku appealed to the State and Federal Governments and other well-meaning organisations to support schools in IDP camps to ensure that no child was left behind in accessing quality education.
Similarly, a parent, Mr Aliyu Haliru-Adamu, said the donated items would relieve them from the burden of spending their lean resources on such items for their children.
A student, Faith Yohanna, said: “This gesture will go a long way to help us learn in a more conducive environment.
“Most of us came from the North-East because of insecurity, so the books and other learning materials will help save our parents’ money and enable us to have the other things we need in school.”
