…Empowers children through free summer school
By Gabriel Alonta
The sustainable development of any nation hinges on the quality of education provided for all her citizenry irrespective of where they reside, urban or rural community.
Realising this onerous task, the Joint Development Peace Commission, Onitsha, a faith-based non governmental organisation, in collaboration with Idi kacho Women in Government (I-WIG), Women Action Committee (WAC) and Libraries in Anambra State, organised a free summer school for children in Nawgu, Dunukofia Local Government Area.
The summer school had many prominent resource persons, who came with divers instructional materials to make learning fun in attendance.
Speaking during the closing ceremony of 2017 August summer school learning and reading in rural communities in Anambra State, the Coordinator and Development Practitioner, Ngozi Osuchukwu, commended the partnering organisations for providing the children with the different learning materials like books, classroom and other materials that aided learning.
Osuchukwu noted that children in rural communities are lagging in education unlike their counterpart in the urban centres, stressing that the partnering organisations provide community information and engagement.
“We have been working in communities and the children in the community seem to lag behind. There is no library or any reading room and from our engagement and interaction, you cannot compare them with people in the city. We organised the summer school to make them feel like other children in cities.
“Our goal is not to leave any one behind in our quest to achieve some element of literacy in the communities”, she added.
In her speech, the Director, Women Action Committee, Prof. Mercy Anagbogu, said that community counselling must be utilised as a tool at the grassroots to ensure sustainable democracy, adding that anything the community supports was likely to succeed.
Maintaining I-WIG was famous for community counselling, she described education as the strongest tool that can change, build and sustain any development.
According to her, “without education, there will be no development, growth and reformation.”
She thanked the traditional ruler of Nawgu, Igwe George Okaa-Onwuogu, for his unalloyed support and for allowing his community as a pilot model, stressing that education is what brings a community to limelight.
“We decided that there should be need for special summer school, a way of getting the community and the parents to be involved. Reading or writing culture is declining in the society and it is when you read that you become creative. Without education, there will be no development, growth and reformation”, she stated.
The counselling expert further disclosed that she was overwhelmed by the performance of the children, especially in moral behaviour, creativity and gender-based violence, noting that misdemeanour such as loitering around, bullying, molestation of fellow students were curbed during the summer school.
She called on the Nawgu people home and abroad to support the programme and the children.
On her part, the Acting Director, Anambra State Library Service, Awka, Nkechi Udeze, said that the partnership was aimed at fostering reading culture, especially in rural community, adding that the library provided the children with books and equipment to enable learn well.
Udeze rued the absence of library in Nawgu and most rural communities as one of the factors leading to the decline in reading culture of rural communities.
According to her, “reading is important and whatever you will be in life, you have to study very hard, so that you can be properly informed. We hope to get sponsors too, not in only Nawgu but also in other parts, especially where we don’t have libraries to further extend this good work to the nooks and crannies of the state”.
She also urged the children not to relent in studying hard with the books provided to them, saying that reading maketh a man, and called on the parents to speak Igbo language with their children.
Earlier, the Programme Manager, JDPC, Onitsha, Mr. Frank Oranwuba disclosed that the summer school, as part of the innovative fund raising activities, was targeted mainly for children between the ages of 3 and 10, noting that the essence of the lesson was to catch them young.
He said that JDPC and the collaborating NGOs have a reputation of fighting injustice and ensuring that there is human and material development, especially at the grassroots level.
READ ALSO: Anambra anti-cult police arrests 8 teenage cultists in Ihiala