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The rate of poverty and insurgency is on the rise in Nigeria, especially in the Northern states. The increasing rate of family displacement has directly affected the number of out-of-school children. This increases the vulnerability of children to child labor and abuse, and subsequently social vices including substance use and abuse, etc.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) says about 50.8% of Nigerian children, aged between 5 and 17, are involved in child labor. UNESCO also reports that there are over 10.5 million out-of- school children in Nigeria, which is about 50% of world out of school children.
The child labor prevalence in North central Nigeria including the F.C.T (Federal Capital Territory) is reported at 56.8% (about 5,964,000 children). This indicates that the F.C.T harbors approximately 852,000 children involved in child labor. Results from the National Population Commission (NPC) of Nigeria and The National Bureau of Statistics (2016) gave the total population of children in the F.C.T between the ages of 10 to 19 as 660,549 with Bwari Area Council constituting 16.3% of the total population. Therefore, the number of children in Bwari Area Council is approximately 107,669. It is estimated that about 50% of these children are out-of-school due to poverty and internal displacement as a result of insurgency and socio-economic instability in the Northern region.
Flickers of Hope Foundation, an NGO committed to restoring hope to the hopeless, in partnership with GlobalGiving through the Accelerator Campaign and leveraging the support of the general public plans to relieve the Bwari community of this burden by launching Project Back2School. Through the Project Back2School, FOH will: identify children in the aforementioned categories who have completed their basic school; enroll them; and sponsor them through the three years of study in Junior Secondary School, as well as provide them with empowerment programs.
What have we observed about the problem? A boy in our locality had lost hope of being enrolled into JSS1 as a result of his poor family background. No one was neither able nor willing to provide the funds for him to continue his education. So, he went about fishing in order to trade it in return for money so he could save it up for his fees and return back to school to join his friends and colleagues. The school term was running out but he was only able to save up little which was barely enough. It was on one of such of his house-to-house fish trading that we encountered him. This is one of the many cases of school drop outs resulting in child labour in our community. As an organization, we have enrolled him in School and he is happy to carry on with his colleagues. This is exactly what we want to do with many more children of his kind within the Bwari community through the Project Back2School.
The Project back2School is aimed at supporting the education of children (primary school leavers) in the Bwari area Council of F.C.T who are unable to further their education due to either their poor family background and/or displacement due to insurgency through their Junior Secondary School years (JSS1-3). The scope of the project covers: enrolment fees; uniforms; textbooks including mathematics, English, and basic sciences; school kits including sandals and school bags; transportation and lunch allowance; writing materials; and Junior school certificate examination fees. This is to ensure that beneficiaries are able to concentrate and perform optimally among their contemporaries in school.
The implementation of this project will increase school enrollment and improve literacy in the Bwari community. This will in turn reduce child labor and abuse and other social vices. The project will also ensure holistic development of beneficiaries through the formal education they will access in their various schools as well as the leadership training and mentoring program that we will be offering to them.
The goal of Project Back2School is to increase enrollment rate and decrease the statistic for out of school children in Nigeria; reduce the risk and exposure of children to child labor and abuse; reduce social vices and crime waves in Bwari and F.C.T.
To support this project, kindly click this link http://goto.gg/36917 to learn more about it and donate towards it.
You can contact us via email at flickersofhope@gmail.com . To learn more about our work, kindly visit our website at www.flickersofhope.org or follow us on social media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/Fohfoundation/; Twitter: @FOH_Foundation; Instagram: @flickersofhope ; and LinkedIn: Flickers of Hope Foundation
