The Niger government says it is keying into the federal government At-Risk Children Project, ARC-P, to support more than 72,000 out-of-school children in the state.
The Convener of the Programme and wife of the Niger governor, Dr Amina Bello, said this when she received a team on ARC-P led by Maryam Uwais, Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment programme in Minna.
Mrs Bello said that the state government would use the programme to support out-of-school children as well as address unemployment among youths across the state to with life dignity skills.
“The project will address a lot of challenges faced by large number out-of-school children as the state is said to have the highest number of out-of-school children. It is also to support unskilled youths,” she said.
She attributed increased cases of violence, kidnapping and insecurity in northern part of Nigeria to poor and lack of education in the region, adding that ARC-P was to help mitigate against such vices.
Mrs Bello noted that the state government was committed to supporting out-of-school children to become productivity members of the society, adding that adequate support and structure would be put in place for the project.
Responding, Mrs Uwais said that the project was a federal government initiative designed to provide a multidimensional approach to challenges of out-of-school children at risk potentially and physically.
She said that the project has seven pillars such as literacy and numeracy, health and nutrition, digital skills, vocational and financial skills, life skills and sports, gatekeeper intervention, agriculture and climate issues.
Mrs Uwais noted that the project was to identify challenges faced by out-of-school children, youths and assess them based on current efforts made by the state government to add value so as to reduce poverty in the state.
“This project is to support and engage children and youth without education go to school and empower them with skills to achieve their full potential,” she said.
The Secretary to the State Government, Ahmed Matane, said the project would help children displaced by banditry and children of pastoralists to get back to school to remove them from the street.
Similarly, the state Commissioner of Finance and Planning Commission, Abubakar Zakari, said that the state look at activities covering the budget to contribute its quota towards the project.
Part of activities was inspection of Islamic schools hosting out-of-school children and Almajirai by the team led by the governor’s wife.
NAN
