A non governmental organization, Save and Secure the Child Initiative (SASCI) has awarded scholarships to 39 primary school pupils and secondary school students in Awka, Anambra State.
The State Principal of the NGO, Mr Kingsley Obi said the pupils and students were drawn from indigent homes, where parents cannot afford fees for their children, and from public schools, where some of the pupils and students were unable to pay fees.
The students who were awarded the scholarship during the 2022 scholarship scheme for indigent students, which held at Paul University Auditorium consisted of 33 primary school pupils and six secondary school students.
Obi who spoke during the award of scholarship said: “Save and Secure the Child Initiative is an NGO which caters for the welfare of children. What we do is that we seek justice for abused children, and quite a number of them abound in our society today.
“Some are house helps who are abused by their benefactors, but what we now did is that we felt that helping children like that to go to school would be good, so we started this scholarship scheme, which is a yearly affair.
“You may have heard the kind of amount given to them as their school fees; N3,000, N3,500 and the rest. Some of them attend schools where they pay just N1,200 as school fees, but they cannot afford it, so they drop out. That is why we selected them for help.
“Some of the secondary school pupils need just N6,000 as school fees to return to school but they do not have it. So you can see how poor they are. What we have done is that besides paying their fees for one year each, we also give them school bags and also provide them with books, including text books, depending on their classes.
Meanwhile, the sponsor of this year’s event, Mr Paul Anaezeofor who spoke to journalists said: “I decided to take up the scholarship of this year as a sort of thanksgiving for what God has done for me and my family.
“I felt instead of doing thanksgiving and calling my friends to drink expensive wines and eat food, I decided that it would be better for me to ease the burden of some indigent parents by offering one year scholarship for these children.
“I prefer paying their school fees and helping them attain education, instead of going to hold parties. I am a co-founder of this organization, and we know the high number of abused children in the society. We are in court with several persons over abused children, and they are just uncountable.”
Chairman of the occasion, Dr Emma Ojukwu lauded the initiative, while calling for help from public spirited individuals to sustain the scholarships. Parents of the children also spoke glowingly of the initiative, thanking God for their children who were found worthy of the scholarship.
