Swiss Officials Visit AUN Feed and Read Center
On September 27, three Swiss Embassy officials in Nigeria were at AUN and visited the Feed & Read Girls Center.
The diplomatic team included Ambassador Eric Mayoraz; Pascal Holliger, Political Adviser, and Manuel Mutrux, First Secretary for Humanitarian Aid and Development Cooperation.
The three visitors were received by Executive Director of AUN Schools, Mrs. Nkem Uzowulu, who gave an overview of the intervention program, and the motivation for starting it, the desire by President Ensign to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the University’s host community.
The boys’ equivalent of the program for the Almajiri children, which started a year prior, was already a success. So AUN started another for girls in order to provide a similar educational opportunity.
The children are served one good meal a day and taught how to read as well. Besides literacy, the children also learn basic numeracy and personal hygiene.
She said the program has significantly improved their level of confidence as they are now very sociable.
The project, which is sponsored by the Irish government for six months, targets vulnerable children. “Some of the children live with their parents, some are orphans, and others are IDPs who have been adopted by people living in the communities.”
Noting that the children are not yet enrolled in formal school, and with more children still hoping to join, Mrs. Uzowulu said the management of the Center is now soliciting assistance from people to help enroll the children in the mainstream schools.
With this, she said, they can have more room to accept new pupils into the AUN program.
By Omorogbe Omorogiuwa
