By Joseph Edegbo
Internally displaced children who are camping at Ungwan Zawu, Goni-Gora, Chikun local government area of Kaduna State, North West NIgeria are in dire need of instructional material, if learning must continue pending the time their parents will find their bearing back to their ancestral homes.
At the last official count, Ungwan Zawu IDP camp Gonin-Gora Kaduna has 278 men, 342 women and 248 children – totalling 868 persons across age and sex excluding those who joined the camp lately.
Like pathetic stories of several internally displaced persons camps across the country, banditry terrorising several communities in Birnin Gwari local government area of Kaduna state have forced them out of their homes after losing some loved ones to the onslaught and tired of payment of ransom for kidnapped ones.
After trekking kilometres for days in 2019, they found a temporary place at the extreme part of Goni-Gora – a fast-developing community located along Kaduna – Abuja highway where they have been surviving at mercies of nongovernmental organisations, religion organisations and spirited individuals.
To the children, nursing mothers, pregnant women and aged survivors of banditry attacks in this camp, life goes on even when they have little or nothing to eat, poor access to basic medical needs or a befitting place to lay their heads.
But children don’t understand the situation the parents found themselves, hence, their demand for a learning ground as they used to do back then in their home. Their yearning eventually gave birth to Internally Displaced People’s Nursery and Primary School, Ungwan Zawu, Gonin-Gora, Kaduna.
A volunteering teacher at the camp, Emmanuel Stephen Yari, appealed to anyone who can help in supporting continuous education of the children at the camp to address the human rights issues arising as a result of their displacement.
The instructional materials he listed include whiteboard (s), board markers, benches, chairs and tables for the staff, uniforms and stockings and sandals/canvas.
Others are textbooks (readers) for nursery one and two; primary one and two, writing materials (notebooks, pencils, eraser, crayon etc), games wear (including footballs, skipping ropes, volleyballs and table tennis), Bibles and children storybooks such as the creation of the world among others.
“We are soliciting for these items to enable us to teach the ‘now common’ but ‘not common’ in later days to come children so they will one day be like other children. We want you all to help us drive this vision to reality.
“We are not asking for money but any of these items listed above will assist us in bringing up these children to become responsible citizens”, Yari appealed.
