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Newsletters EIS Primary School Education Program
These villages are comprised of a large percentage of Gwari people who are poor farmers, as well as thousands of other unemployed settlers from different part of Nigeria. Most of these people are poverty-stricken & the chances of them being able to send their children to a school are very slim.
To date Edu-vision International Services (EIS) has built six classrooms as well as implemented teachers training courses in the school. At present:
Training of a child cannot be the sole responsibility of a teacher. Parents should play a major role in molding a child’s life. And some of the parents in many of the villages we operate in have to be reminded of their responsibilities as parents. We conduct regular teachers & parents meeting to help train parents.
New School Desks
Thanks to a grant from Family Care Foundation and other sources, we were able to purchase 120 school desks for the children, and 15 teachers’ tables and chairs for our Gwako school project.
Gratitude for children’s sponsored education The following is a letter dictated to us by a thankful mother who has two children in our school, which reveals the extreme difficulties faced by many families here.
When things were going well, we decided make a small abode for ourselves in Karimo, Abuja. Then disaster struck. The government decided to demolish all the houses in the area where we were staying. We thought it was just rumors so we didn't believe it until the bulldozer was at our door. The next day we were homeless, squatting on open land with no roof over our head. Some of our luggage got stolen in the process. To top our grievances, my husband lost his job. I also became jobless because there was no one to sell roasted yam to in the area. We decided to move to Gwako village. We rented one small room there. Since this room could not contain all of us, we sent our two oldest children back to their grandparents in the village. Our twins were reaching school age; we couldn't feed ourselves let alone talk about sending them to school. One Saturday, Mr. Simon of Family Care visited our house inquiring about our children and their schooling. I bluntly told him that he should forget about trying to get our children to school because we could not afford it. He told us not to worry and that my husband should bring the children to school the next day. Now, our twins are enjoying free education in Family Care Edu-Vision school in Gwako. It didn't stop there; my husband has also been getting occasional jobs in the school. This has been help us in sustaining ourselves. I would like to seize this opportunity to thank Family Care for caring for my family.
Through EIS’s support, not only children but also their parents
have deepened their awareness toward qualitative education. It was encouraging
that many of the parents, especially mothers who tend to be uneducated
and illiterate, started to seek to gain literacy. The schools we set up
in any of the targeted communities are also providing adult literacy classes
for both men & women.
Vocational Centers for Vesico Vaginal Fistula patients Since Edu-vision International Services was set up in 2001, we have extended our services to other states in Nigeria. The practices and way of life of Nigerians in the north part of the country is quite primitive. Some girls get married as early as 13 years of age, in fact many of them
get their first period after having moved into their husband’s house.
Since these girls are not completely physically developed, they often
develop complication during pregnancy. Most of them also have difficult
& prolonged labor. To add to the their precarious situation, there
are usually no nearby hospitals where they can receive a cesarean section
if necessary, so the baby sometimes dies during birth. There had been
cases of mothers carrying a still baby around in the birth canal for three
days!
Such circumstances lead to a high rate of Vesico Vaginal Fistulas (VVF). Some of the symptoms of VVF is a constant dribbling of urine down their legs – acute weak bladder, wetting their clothes and the accompanying smell makes them outcasts.
Three hospitals were set up in that region by a Dutch volunteer doctor to help women with cases of VVF. As many as 8 operations for VVF cases per busy day are performed there. Some of the girls who have come down with this infection, and treated as outcasts, still have no place to return to after an operation. Numbers of them are just hanging around the hospital doing nothing. Many of them turn into prostitution etc. Even after they have been treated physically through operation, the emotional
& mental trauma that follows is not attended to. EIS personnel assist
during their operations, and help supply their basic physical needs.
Through a sponsorship of the Japanese Embassy, we constructed a vocational training center and hostel for VVF patients in Zaria, that is the northern part of Nigeria. While in Zaria, we had interviewed a young woman who received a medical procedure for VVF in 2000. Since then she has had two children and was pregnant with the third one which could have resulted in VVF. She managed to get a little money to transport herself to the hospital for check up where they discovered some complications. This young woman was so poor that she did not even have enough money to transport herself back to her village which was about 15kms from the hospital. She was anticipating walking back to her village. She was eight months and three weeks pregnant. The VVF nurse in charge had to give her transport money to journey her back home by public transport. Her case was presented to the hospital management, who later helped her to deliver her baby through caesarean session. Many women in villages around the Northern part of Nigeria face the same dilemma. Some are aware of antenatal in pregnancy but don’t have enough money to visit the nearest hospital. The matron of VVF ward in the hospital informed us that the hospital receives minimum of two VVF patients a day. Some have been rejected by their family and have no where to go after surgery. She further said, many of the VVF cases could have been avoided if the women in this part of the country are well informed through awareness campaign etc. Even if there are campaigns, the level of poverty in this area makes women stay away from hospitals where they could go for check up during pregnancy. So our goal is to help train some of these women in vocations, to help empower them toward a better life. To donate to this Family Care Foundation Project, please note Project NAME and then click here.
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