Empower students with textbooks
SEPTEMBER, 2023
The new academic year opened this September and Achieve Africa visited Idaw Girls Government Secondary School, on Agbani Road, Enugu, Enugu State.
Goal of the project: empower students with textbooks as they go back to school
Indigent students Junior Secondary School about to sit for Junior Secondary School Exams were given Mathematics and English Textbooks to help them prepare for their exams at the end of the school year.
Number of students reached: 10
The case of stray children in Enugu
Introduction
Enugu city is gradually becoming the capital of out-of-school and stray children in the south east. Many of them could be seen around New Artisan, New Haven, Abakpa, Opara square Holy Ghost and Old Artisan Areas. On certain afternoons, they line up the road leading to Opara Square to beg for alms. Some of them pick up old and condemned metal containers along the road and trade them for meager sums. Others wait outside popular eateries like Ntachi Osa to beg for alms. They sleep on the verandas of lock-up shops in the market or under trees along the avenues that line up New Haven and Opara Avenue.
Achieve Africa has gathered, from her many interactions with these children, that some of them are orphans who have been abandoned by relatives. Some of them have run away from home. A few of them have families but joined their friends to seek ‘greener pastures’. Some of them have become violent towards people and have formed themselves into a sort of renegade group, attacking people when they feel slighted. Some have even developed suicidal tendencies. One case is of a boy, Oladeji by name, who has attempted to end his life.
The work so far
With the assistance of my friend Sara, we have given food and clothes to them to try to win their confidence and get them to tell their stories. In one of our visits, they told us that one of them from Osun state has returned home to his parents.
The end goal
The end in mind is to get them resettled to their families or assist them to learn a trade. The later proposition is for those who have no place to go or families to fall back to.