Jigawa partner with UNICEF to enroll 8000 stranded children back to school
By Salisu K Ismail
Jigawa state government has made partnership with UNICEF to enroll 8000 Almajiri and stranded children back to school and improve their life in the state.
This was disclosed by the Director Child Development, Jigawa State MInistry of Women Affairs, Hajiya Indo Garba while interacting with journalists at a 3-days training of the 100 case workers held at Theater Hall, Jigawa State Polytechnic, Dutse.
The Director Child Development, who double as a Focal Person of the Ministry/UNICEF program stated that to pilot the program, all steps have been concluded to take back the set of already documented out of school children to formal school, adding that, the training is part of the processes towards ensuring proper monitoring and the success of the program.
Speaking on the number of beneficiaries, Mrs. Indo Garba revealed that, we have registered 2000 children from each of the 4 local government to begin the program with, which make it 8000 in total.
"Among the benefitting children, those at the age of 10 to 14 will be enrolled back to school while those from 14 to 19 will at the same time be attached to learn some skill to help them attained a means for self-reliance," she explained further.
On the number of out of school children, the Director hinted that, for this program, the ministry will use it's already documented and revalidated data saying that, "In September last year to be precise, we revalidated our data of out of school children across the state that stood at 123,996," adding that, "Out of the data, the program will be piloted with 8000 children who will be enroll into school."
Also, Hajiya Indo Garba mentioned that, "At a piloting stage, the ministry selected 4 Civil Society Organisations to begin implementation of the program in the state," and at the current stage, "A first batch of 50 case workers derived from Dutse and Birnin Kudu CBOs are undergoing training while the second batch of those from Kafin Hausa and Yan'kwashi would subsequently follow."
According to her, "Every one among 4 of the selected CSOs was assigned with a particular local government for them to go and fish out the reliable Community Based Organizations, and at the moment the 25 CBOs selected from each of the 4 piloting local government were assessed and ascertained by the Ministry in respect of their capacity of reporting and referring on a case of any of the out of school children in their community.
On her part while shedding more light, the Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF Kano Field Office, Mrs. Fatima Adamu said the organisation is providing platform to mitigate the gap of having children on the streets that will be stranded without the support.
"We're working with Jigawa State to look at children's at Tsangaya to look at safe guiding them, providing them with the services that they require such as psycho social support,livelihood skills,school enrollment for those that want to and not only Almajiri children but also all adolescent out of school girls."
She added that, the Almajiri and out of school enrollment programming in Jigawa is for targeted children that are already been documented and validated by the state government through our partnership with SUBEB, the Tsangaya unit and the Ministry of Women Affairs and also in collaboration with CSOs that the state Ministry of Women Affairs has recognized and works with.
Mrs. Adamu who highlighted that for this year, UNICEF in Jigawa targeted to enrolled between 8 to 10 thousands out of school children also affirms that, the Organization want an environment where children have the opportunity to grow with all the potentials that is required within their community and that is why we're looking at strengthening the justice and social welfare systems for every child to thrive in the state.
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