VSF education: 80,000 pupils get support in North-East

The newly constructed school for IDPs

The newly constructed school for IDPs

The newly constructed school for IDPs

More than 80, 000 children in the North-East have benefited from education support initiative of the Federal Government’s Victim Support Fund (VSF).

VSF’s Director, Prof. Sunday Ochoche, disclosed this on Wednesday at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Fund and the Centre for Disaster Risk Management and Development Studies of the University of Maiduguri.

Ochoche said the Fund had initiated various programmes to support children displaced by Boko Haram insurgency to go back to school in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

He said that the fund had reconstructed schools and clinics destroyed by the insurgents at Dikwa, Bama and other liberated communities in the affected states.

Ocoche said that arrangements were concluded to execute similar projects at Damasak and Gwoza local government areas of Borno.

“We have reconstructed schools, maternity clinics and local government secretariats ravaged by the insurgents at Dikwa and Bama.

“We also planned to move into Damasak and Gwoza to conduct similar rehabilitation and reconstruction work,” he said.

The director said that about 8, 000 mothers had also benefited from its economic strengthening and livelihoods programme, while 500 displaced farmers received inputs support.

READ: LASG must resettle us, Otodo Gbame residents protest in Alausa

He said that the programme had provided fund to facilitate treatment of victims of insurgents’ attacks at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).

Ochoche lauded the management of the hospital over the effective utilisation of the fund provided for treatment of the victims.

According to him, the MoU would enable the centre to carry out baseline assessment of communities affected by the insurgency.

He stressed that the assessment would assist the Fund to implement sound programmes to address humanitarian crises and meet the needs of the affected persons.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the VSF was established by the Federal Government in 2014 under the Presidential Initiative for the North-East, to address humanitarian crises caused by the Boko Haram insurgency in the region.

Load more