The Victim Support Fund (VSF) is to support 74, 000 primary and junior secondary school children affected by insurgency in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states.
The Executive Director of the Fund, Prof. Sunday Ochoche disclosed this on Tuesday while flagging-off Education Support in North East at Gaya-Fa’a village of Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa.
Ochoche said the support geared towards improving access to quality education is for conflict affected children in the affected states.
Ochoche said that in Adamawa, about 22,000 children would benefit from the gesture.
Ochoche, who said the Fund would continue to give priority attention to education in its various interventions, urged the benefitting communities to make maximum use of the opportunity to enable them continue with their normal life.
“This is continuation of recovery and rebuilding efforts of communities affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.
“The area of education is particularly critical to VSF because we recognize lack of proper education as fundamental to the root cause of the insurgency.”
Ochoche warned against selling the items provided by the Fund particularly school books and bags, adding that anyone caught in the act would be prosecuted.
In his remarks, Gov. Muhammadu Bindow of Adamawa represented by the Commissioner of Education, Mr Julius Kadala, lauded VSF for sustaining the support to the state particularly in area of education and urged benefitting communities to ensure judicious use of the structures and facilities provided.
Bindow, who described the interventions as a huge boost to the state which had already declared state of emergency on Education, said the state was also involved in massive rehabilitations and equipping of schools across the state.
Speaking on behalf of VSF collaborating partners in Adamawa, the Executive Director of Global Education, Alhaji Bashir Dahiru and Mallam Gidado Ahmed of Community Reach Initiative, described VSF intervention as the best so far in terms of reaching out to affected communities in remote areas.
They urged other organizations to emulate VSF to ensure that the worst affected areas by the insurgency receive the needed support.
Speaking on behalf of the communities, the village Head of Gaya-Fa’a, Alhaji Jafaru Datsu and the chairman School Management Committee of Gaya-Fa’a primary school, Mr Abanikus Titus, also lauded the VSF ‘s intervention.
They particularly commended the Fund for building classrooms and providing books, bags, sandals and other facilities to pupils in the area.
They promised to mobilise parents and other stakeholders to ensure prosper utilization of the facilities.
NAN reports that the Chairman of VSF, retired Gen. T. Y. Danjuma represented by Mr Sunday Oibe had inaugurated new blocks of classrooms and distributed books, sandals and school bags to pupils.
NAN
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