Out-of-school children, most of whom spend their days roaming the streets of Maiduguri, are being enrolled in education facilities through a voluntary initiative by youths from the London Ciki Community Development Association.
The youths, all volunteers, go out to look for children who are on the streets instead of at school, talk to them to explain the initiative and then, if they’re willing, they are enrolled in schools.
Abubakar Muhammad, a pupil who was enrolled, told RNI reporter Falmata Tijjani Bukar that he was happy to be in school.
“I’m pleased to be at school. We usually just sit idle or roam the streets. Sometimes we do some small jobs but we haven’t been to school until now. The youths explained to me that knowledge is useful and vital to life.
“I am now 16 years old and I was enrolled into JSS 1 [junior secondary school 1]. I am so happy to be getting an education and I’m learning well.”
Zarah Ali Mala, a mother whose child was enrolled, said: “I’m happy that my child has been enrolled back into class. I have not been pleased about our children roaming the streets because they are easily exposed to bad people who force them to steal or fetch and carry drugs. If my child carried on doing these things his life would be destroyed.
“A mother has a good feeling knowing her children are being educated. When our children are on the streets, we worry about them. Use of drugs among children is big concern and, when our children are on the streets, addicts often send them on errands to buy drugs which exposes the kids to danger. The initiative to enrol our children into schools has put our minds at rest.”
Babagana Grema Mustapha, secretary of the London Ciki Community Development Association, said: “The reason we enrol the children into schools is that we realised how harmful it is for kids to be roaming the streets, especially the girls. So, we we sat down to discuss solutions and came up with the idea of enrolling as many street children into schools as we can.
“We can’t enrol all of them and some don’t even want to go to school, even though we explain to them that by continuing to roam the streets they could fall into unhealthy habits and that they will not only harm themselves but could also be caught for stealing and that would bring shame to them as well as to their parents. We tell them that it is exceedingly difficult to find a job without an education.
“The initiative has just started but we have already enrolled more than 10 children, including girls, into various schools.”
Mustapha said members of the association realised that the initiative would improve and bring comfort to the community, reduce the number of out-of-school children and ensure a brighter future for them.
“One of the challenges we face is that some children refuse to attend school. We are investigating places where they might be able to learn skills that will help them to become useful citizens and enable them to earn money.
“Our work is purely voluntary and we have no help from citizens. We take responsibility for supporting the initiative by each contributing from our own pockets. We would like to team up with authorities because that would result in getting more children off the streets and into schools. It would also mean we would get the means to pay for the resources and the costs of getting children set up in schools.”
AISHA SD JAMAL
