The Executive Director of the Human Development Initiative, in person of Mrs Olufunso Owasanoye, at a two-day training workshop on monitoring basic education projects, themed, ‘One-Day Tracking Campaign’ said it is everyone’s duty to ensure that out-of-school children are given proper education.
The event, which was organised for community members, was also attended by artisans and traders across Lagos State
According to Owasanoye, the training is to sensitise residents and ensure that all children are educated.
“And to support this initiative, we decided to add artisans because they also live in the communities so that we can sensitise them to support in bringing these children to school. If you are a widow or less privileged in any way, we will give you scholarships on everything; yours is just to bring the child to class. Some of these participants can know influential people in the society which they can call to come help these children, because a child not properly taken care of will be a problem,” she added.
While sensitising participants to their roles of ending the out-of-school crisis, the HDI Human Resource Officer, Ms. Bola Dare, encouraged them to bring children in their communities back to school or to HDI, adding that they would give such children scholarships.
The Somolu Market leader, Mrs Omolabake Oyediran, said, “We will arrange ourselves into groups in our community to pick up some of these children roaming around. We were told that children seen walking about during school hours are our responsibility.
“With this training, we will have the boldness to talk to any child found walking about. They also told us we have the right to take a child who is interested in education to school and whatever we can’t afford, we can call them.”
