Writing By Ismai’l Adamu; Editing By Godwin Duru
Save the Children International (SCI) has provided school uniforms, bags, exercise books, pencils, erasers and other learning materials to internally displaced pupils at Unguwan Zawu community in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
The gesture was part of interventions under the Education Cannot Wait – First Emergency Response (ECW-FER) project which is being implemented in Katsina, Kaduna and Zamfara states.
The project which runs from October 2024 to February 2026, targets crisis-affected children with various forms of education support and interventions aimed at mitigating the impact of disaster on learning.
At Unguwan Zawu IDP camp which accommodates displaced persons who fled banditry in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of the state, several such interventions are being carried out under the ECW-FER project to ensure that the impact of displacement is not felt by children in the community.
Mr. Saleh Nayaro, the Chief of the Unguwan Zawu IDP community, explained that since they fled from Rumanan Gbagyi village in Birnin Gwari local government area, they have been residing at the IDP camp where they could not re-enrol their children in school.
“One of our biggest fears was that the education of our children could be disrupted, but luckily Save the Children extended this intervention to us, now our children are using this block as a make-shift school.
“The block was donated by our host community, and SCI deployed teachers to provide lessons for the pupils, they also donated canopies and some facilities to make our stay comfortable in the camp.
“They also train our people on safe parenting by guiding them on how to groom their children to become educated and responsible. We really appreciate these contributions in our community”, Mr. Nayaro said.
One of the beneficiaries of the Safe Parenting component of the intervention, Mrs. Josephine Sunday, pointed out that the guidance and counseling sessions have reduced cases of child abuse and domestic violence while saving some families from disintegrating.
“We are really benefiting from the safe parenting sessions by facilitators from Save the Children International because they are saving many homes from falling apart due to non-challance or lack of education among some parents.
“Before these sessions started many homes were breaking apart and many parents were raising wayward children without proper education or good home training, and those children end up becoming problems for the community.
“The facilitators also tutor us on good neighborliness and the need to provide quality education and home training for our children as well as counseling sessions for couples because when marriages are saved it is the future of the children that is saved.
“They also settle disputes among community members and provide detergents like omo, soap and other household items that will ease the economic hardship for parents because some of the disputes between couples boil down to the lack of means to provide some basic household needs”, she explained.
One of the SCI Safe Parenting facilitators in the community, Musa Jonathan, told Radio Nigeria that the aim of the trainings is to teach parents how to safeguard children from physical, sexual or emotional abuse, and also to prevent them from neglect or exploitation.
“What we do here as Safe Family facilitators is to deliver training sessions on safe parenting, also called positive parenting, which is a way that parents can train and nurture their children with the thought of the well-being of the child at heart, so that anything they do will be for the betterment of the child.
“We also train them to pay close attention to their children by building a rapport with them, because there are certain things that happen in the lives of children that if you are not close to them you will not know. It could be bullying or abuse in school or in the community.
“But if you build a close interaction with them, whenever something of concern happens to them they will come and tell you. We have had many cases where children could not report cases of abuse or bullying to their parents because the parents have not built a close interaction with them.
“Children, by their nature, only feel safe with someone that draws them closer, so we teach parents that if they build a close connection, interaction and attachment with their children, they will feel free to tell them anything that happens to them so that appropriate action can be taken to address it”, Jonathan said.
Meanwhile, the SCI Project Manager, Mrs Altine Lew, explained that the IDPs schools initiative under the Education Cannot Wait project is aimed at “ensuring that every child affected by crisis gets a second chance to learn”.
She disclosed that the project has provided various forms of support to 122,050 learners in school, and enrolled 36,615 out of school children across Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina States.
“Save the Children, with support from Education Cannot Wait, has supported them with literacy and numeracy skills to help them reintegrate fully into formal education. The project focuses on inclusive education, ensuring that boys, girls and children with disabilities all benefit equally.
“It also supports the establishment of Temporary Learning Centres (TLCs) and Alternative Learning Spaces (ALS) where learners receive catch-up classes and psychosocial support before transitioning into mainstream schools”, she noted.
Ismail Adamu
