The wife of the Kebbi State Governor, Hajiya Aisha Bagudu, has called for adequate funding for the proper education of out-of-school children to keep them away from crime.
Hajiya Aisha, who is the founder and initiator of Mass Literacy for Less Privileged and Almajiri Initiative (MALLPAI), stated this during the foundation’s 2021 literacy day with the theme: “Promoting Literacy for Better Education in Nigeria”, in Abuja recently.
She said, “The mistake we are all making is to think that by educating our children alone and not educating others, we are doing better; we are not.”
She noted that the foundation had nothing to do with the government, but that it had challenges and success stories of sending a lot of out-of-school children back to school.
She said, “We started with almajirai, we had challenges then and now, people do not just see such children; they just see a nuisance, but for us, we see the children; not the nuisance. We see them as human beings; some of them have started working, some have come back to work with MALLPAI.
“These children that we are looking down on today will be the ones that will not let our children sleep in future if we do not invest in providing basic education for them early.”
While noting that the foundation had empowered over 2,000 people in terms of education and skills acquisition, she said, “One of the things we do is, we ask you to pick one child per house to educate; by picking that child you have changed that family. Such a child will grow up knowing the importance of helping another person.
“There are lots of challenges parents and children face. So, if you are advising a person to train a child, you have to be very careful with the mindset before you do so.”
She disclosed that the foundation solicited funds from people for its programmes, while promising to improve on the success so far recorded.
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