Education Gets A Boost As HVCF Distributes School Bench/Desk To Schools
Zainab Tanimu
Kaduna Northwest Nigeria
As part of its contribution towards enhancing education in the state, ‘Hope for the Village Child Foundation’, (HVCF) in partnership with ActionAid on Wednesday, distributed school bench/desk to schools within its locality.
The gesture was meant to boost education in the ‘hard to reach areas.’
This was disclosed by the Head of Sustainable Livelihood, ‘Hope for the Village Child Foundation’, Sadiq Bako in a brief interview with Newsreservoir during the distribution exercise held at their premises in Kaduna south, Kaduna state.
The foundation has been in existence for over 26years and has continiously touched lives of the rural people particularly children, through its extended programmes.
Alhaji Sadiq explained further.
“The foundation started in 1996 by a British woman married to a Nigerian. As a Non Governmental organization (NGO), it was treating people with deformities.
From what we are witnessing today , will it be right to say that the foundation is not limiting its scope to just health?
“Basically it concentrated on health but gradually expanded to include education and subsequently the program started expanding to look into the areas of agriculture, youth and the women.
“The foundation has to do with the totality of life of the rural communities.
It is all about community empowerment and other developmental activities.
We are into women empowerment and peace building and youth and others. We are into education, we also look at health.
Under health, we have the Ricke programme. This has to do with the bone. As the child starts growing the bone starts twisting. One of the implications is that maybe the bone doesn’t absorb calcium and one of the interventions we do is to provide the calcium and where the case is so severe, we take them to doctor for surgery.
We have anti natal, we have child welfare clinic and under education we have funds available from sponsors and together with the communities we build schools which we hand over to the government to send teachers.
Under women programme, we empower them to understand their rights as human beings. We also work in the area of gender based violence because we know a lot of it is going on in the communities and we decided to mitigate through the necessary sensitization and also enlightenment in the rural communities.
“We are also into agriculture because the livelihood of the people depends on agriculture, so we try to show them the improved way of farming where they can get optimum yield and also food security in terms of scarcity and service management. We have a package we call the serial ban.
“All these programmes are now included in the foundation’s activities. Like now in our sustainable livelihood we have education, we have women and youth and peace development.
“Today’s activity is a partnership activity we are having with ActionAid.
We have made some desks to support the community schools. Our thematic areas around some of these activities are Chukun, Kajuru and lgabi but because of the issue that has to do with Ricke problem we have our searchlight office in Koi, that covers Jabar, Kagarko, Jaama’a, Kachia local government area.
Though we are within Kaduna state, we also get some patients outside Kaduna state. You know health issues, you don’t have boundaries. People assess health care services here from all over the state and even beyond more especially that which has to do with Ricke activities.
I must say the foundation has gone far and has achieved a lot.
“We partner apart from ActionAid with organizations like Kaduna Peace Center, and in the area of education, we do a lot of things with SUBEB.
ln the partnership with Local Rights program and ActionAid together with the community, we establish progress management that will see to the affairs of the primary schools and also the affairs of the women empowerment, gender based violence and also community para legal which will look into what is happing in the communities.
lt is to report either violence against children or women in other for those concerned to take necessary actions.
You said you do a lot of mitigation with regards to gender based violence. Do you partner with community leaders?
Yes. We partner with community leaders because they are the custodians of the laws and also other key stakeholders in the community. We sensitize them to understand the ills the gender based violence is doing to their society.
If they have any law that punishes such violaters the better but if they don’t have, we want them to handle it at the community level to see how they avert it otherwise if they can’t, it can be reported to the police or civil defense corps so that they will act and see that justice is done depending on the level of violence that is happening in the society. But mostly what we experience is wife battering and genital mutilation which has to do with culture.
To help tackle the situation, we bring all the stakeholders together, even the people that are perpetrating the act, so that the people can understand the ills of such acts. So far, since we started this, there has been a serious reduction in terms of what is happening in the rural communities that has to do with gender based violence.
“We will not say we have achieved 100% success but at least we have reduced it to the minimal since they cannot do it now or openly. Even if it is still going on, maybe they do it hiddenly and we will try to follow it up.
The name Hope For the Village Child, what does it signify?
We say Hope For the Village Child because we believe that children in the rural communities are maginalized in terms of education and other social amenities. Giving Hope to the children in the rural communities just like their counterparts in the cities where they have assess to many good things in life is the focus. Giving them hope.
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Speaking, on behalf of other chiefs, the Sarki Pambawa Gwaraji District- Igabi LGA, Nuhu Tanko thanked the foundation for the gesture saying, it will go a long in strengthening education in their various localities.
“Already we have a school that has been approved by the government which is to commence within the shortest time.
The provision of these school bench/desk will go a long way in easing learning process.
“I wish to state that this is not the first time we are getting assistance from
Hope for the Village Child Foundation. He said.
The consignment was signed for and delivered to the school.
The programme was sponsored by
Hope for the Village Child Foundation in conjunction with ActionAid.
