No fewer than 100,000 children and youth across the 11 local government areas of Gombe State would be supported to live a life of dignity, says Governor Inuwa Yahaya.
The governor stated this in Gombe on Monday at the flag off ceremony of the At Risk Children Project (ARC-P) in Gombe on Monday.
Reports indicated that the state government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment on the ARC- P in March.https://scudnewsng.com
According reports the project is aimed at complementing the effort of state governments in tackling the menace of out-of-school children.
Yahaya said the targeted children would be provided with necessary skills that would enable them to harness their potentials and energies for the overall development of the state.
According to him, the state government had keyed into the project, including all existing social intervention programmes, and tailored towards finding and implementing local solutions to address the menace of out-of-school children.
Also to reduce poverty and provide job opportunities to the teeming youth, said the governor.
He said tackling this phenomenon would no doubt help to reduce poverty and insecurity as well as addressing the health, educational and social challenges facing the target group.
The governor said about 70 percent of these children at risk are found in Northern Nigeria where the menace of Almajiri system is widely practiced and has become endemic.
According to him, available data estimates that there are about 13.2 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, equivalent to about srven percent of the country’s entire population with 70 percent of these children found in northern Nigeria.
“In Gombe State, recent enumeration conducted by our administration through the Better Education and Service Delivery for All (BESDA) project.
“They estimated that there are over 700,000 out-of-school children spread across all the 11 local government areas quite above the UNICEF estimated figure of about 550,000.”
Earlier, Hajiya Maryam Uwais, the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, commended the Gombe state government for being the first to key into the programme, stressing that it will go a long way in keeping the youths busy.
The state Coordinator of the programme, Mr Sani Haruna, said the project has already commenced working with line government MDA’s such as Ministries of Education, Women Affairs and Social Development.
Other ministries are Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation, Youths as well as the State Sports Commission.
He assured that with the support and corporation of the state government, and particularly the Office of the First Lady and wife of the state governor, Hajiya Asmau Yahaya, the programme would be a huge success.
In his goodwill message, Dr Tushar Rane, UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Bauchi, also appreciated the Gombe state government for being the first state to start the programme.
He said the programme would go a long way in addressing the problems associated with children in the state, adding that UNCEF will continue to partner with the state in that direction.
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