Chuks Okocha in Abuja
The Rochas Foundation Group of Free Education for the poor said yesterday that over 20,000 children have been trained freely since inception in 1998
Addressing journalists yesterday, the Director General of the Rochas Foundation, Ucy Okorocha said, “Since inception in 1998, more than 20,000 children from the poorest of the poor have benefitted from the free education scheme of the Rochas foundation. Currently, 5,737 Students are in various schools across the country”.
The director general further stated that, “with over 2,000 graduates since inception, and over 4,000 under graduates currently in different universities. Our challenge has been how to provide jobs for them considering their background and the fact that no one speaks for them or help them in securing jobs.
“They don’t have the contact to secure the jobs as is the common practice in our country. It is for this reason that we kindly call on federal government of Nigeria to consider these graduates”.
The girector general said that as part of the foundation’s efforts to extend the horizon of the free education outreach with the successes achieved, “the foundation established the first ever Rochas Foundation College For Africa where African children from less privilege background enjoy free and qualitative education at no cost to their country.
“The vision to give scholarships to at least five indigent kids from each of the fifty five African countries is daily yielding fruitful results as students are arriving daily to benefit from the laudable initiative. At the last count, we have 148 kids from 19 different countries across the continent”
Ucy Okorocha said the Rochas Foundation has visited several IDP camps in Nigeria and was shocked to note that thousands of children are not going to school, stating that for example the Karon – Majigi IDP Camp where the foundation is training over 180 students that the foundation intends to improve on this during the period of 2020 2021 action plan across the country.
The foundation further said, “As you are aware over 10 million children are out of school in Nigeria primarily due to poverty, instead of education and its benefits, they engage in street trading to help them and their family survive, recently the federal ministry of education had announced this ugly situation and is making every frantic effort to address it. The foundation during the 2020 – 2021 timeframe will partner with the ministry of education in this regard. It is for this reason heat we shall launch this READ which encourages volunteerism and to pick these children out of the streets, providing them with education wherever they may be found in Nigeria.
“Rochas foundation is budgeting the sum of N1 billion for this programme; this fund will be disbursed through NGO’s who are found to be credible to help pursue this cause in their various localities where they exist. We want to use this opportunity to appeal to the agencies in Nigeria to assist in this fight, our concern is that 10 million children is the like a whole nation not going to school and this will create a time bomb for insecurity in the future if this situation is not addressed. We however commend the federal govt for their initiative in this regard”.
