Education has always been a frontline priority for every country and Nigeria, looking towards development has loopholes to fill on the issue of education. Our focus at Literacy Assured Initiative is premised on solving this issue right from the grassroots level and as such on Children’s Day, May 27, 2023, we paid a visit to the kids at Ile-Apa community, Ilorin East LG to execute our new project tagged, “Literacy Program for Children”.
The project consisted a long-list of programmes with the sole aim of helping kids who have little to no knowledge on formal education to establish a foundational knowledge and/or improving same in accordance with the #SDG4.
STORYTELLING
The program kick started with the art of storytelling. Our committed team members took the time to narrate kiddies stories and encouraged the engagement of the children with gifts.
NUMERACY, RECITAL AND MENTAL MATHEMATICS
From the toddlers to young children, the kids were engaged in recital of alphabets in English language, basic numeracy in mathematics and mental maths to strengthen their thinking.
ART LITERACY
The kids were engaged in the total process of collage arts to explore their creative minds. They drew, cut papers and stuck them to create beautiful arts for themselves.
MENTAL LITERACY
The children were engaged in quiz competition and gifts were awarded to kids with outstanding performance. In addition, block building with toys was explored to aid their creativity and inventiveness.
ENGAGEMENT WITH PARENTS
The parents were engaged regarding Child Rights and all matters incidental to it. With respect to education, they were also engaged on the legal implications of violating these rights.
While we engaged these children, here are the issues we noticed:
- The community in itself is underserved,
-The children do not have access to basic teaching materials,
-They do not have active and responsive teachers,
- Given the community, they have no chance to build on what has been learnt in school if any.
-As a result, there are kids within the range of 4-9years who cannot correctly spell nor write their names,
-A lot have difficulty in engaging in formal education procedures without help.
On sustainability approach to this project, we resolved to establishing a Literacy Club in a bid to develop models to address the lack of access to early learning and schooling for children and to achieve significant impacts in the long run in line with the #UN_SDG4. It is sad that over 250 children however, still are not able to enjoy their right to basic education.
To ensure equitable access to quality education and a lifelong learning opportunity to these children, we at Literacy Assured Initiative are open to sponsorship and donations at literacyassuredinitiative@gmail.com to help these kids acquire the knowledge they deserve.