Support 50 Vulnerable Children in Calabar

Project Report | Jul 21, 2020
Support 50 Vulnerable Children July 2020 Report

By Edidiong David Stephen | Program Manager

The Professor Charles Effiong Foundation (PCEF) in the last quarter provided various services to the thirty (30) children and their caregivers it is currently supporting in Calabar.

Over the period of this report, the COVID-19 Pandemic has caused great disruption of services in almost every part of the world, shutting down business, religious and even educational institutions. Calabar, Cross River State is not an exception as the capital city was locked down. Income Generation Activities (IGAs), particularly those of low income earners who are mostly women were greatly affected which in turn cascaded to affect their caring capacity for the children in their care.

Children have been affected in diverse ways; raging from nutritional deficiencies due to inadequate food supply and nutrition; to abuse as well as an increase in incidences of gender based violence (GBV) particularly against girls’ and women (caregivers) by their male partners due to heightened frustration from low income and in most cases, loss of earning opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic being instrumental to the collapse of services, exacerbates the susceptibility of children and their caregivers to disease which sparked fear amongst people in the community with increasingly misleading information about the virus on social media spreading like wild fire.

The issues mentioned above necessitated the Professor Charles Effiong Foundation to provide services to complement the efforts of the International Community and the State Government to provide services as well as provide information to improve caregivers’ skills and abilities in caring for vulnerable children and their households. These information included menstrual and personal hygiene, water and sanitation, nutrition and health education, psychosocial support which provided adequate information they need to stay safe.

During the reporting period under review, The Professor Charles Effiong Foundation, using an interpersonal communication strategy, carried out house-to-house visits to the homes of the vulnerable children it is supporting to create awareness on COVID-19 safety measures which include maintaining social distances, Staying indoors and avoiding crowded places, use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, the use of face masks, and constant handwashing with soap under running water. In order to ensure that households imbibe the handwashing culture, the PCEF team-taught caregivers and their children, how to produce local running water with the use of empty plastic rubbers.

The Foundation complemented the efforts of the caregivers in improving the nutritional dietary diversity of the children who are at home due to the pandemic with limited food supply to feed. These they did through the provision of food packs as palliatives. These food packs composed of rice, beans, seasonings like salt and Maggi, palm and groundnut oil, for fat and oil, soap and detergents, cassava flakes commonly called and known as garri.

While the cases of COVID-19 continue to increase, the lockdown has been eased and re-opening is in process, however, the ban on school gatherings has not yet been lifted which means that children will continue to stay at home with an increased burden and stress of care on the mothers and households. This means that children will become more vulnerable with limited caring resources due to the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their parents, there is already a multiplication in the incidences of sexual exploitation on girls, their indulgence in risky behaviors and sexual activity further make them vulnerable to vices like teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions, drug addiction most likely for the boys, thus the lingering effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Your continued support will help save children especially the girl child from all forms of sexual and gender-based violence and social vices by increasing the economic livelihood of caregivers in order to meet the basic needs of the children and households.

Unfortunately, the schools and families at this level do not have the infrastructure or facilities to conduct virtual learning. There are some programs being conducted by local radio which we encourage our beneficiaries to participate in. We are also exploring how we can support our caregivers to invest in providing some homeschooling for their children.

Thank you for your continuous support as we continue to explore viable options through this trying season.

Permalink

Mar 26, 2020
Support 50 Vulnerable Children March 2020 Report

By Asari Nakanda | Monitoring & Evaluation Officer

Kids Club Meeting

SUPPORT 50 THE EDUCATION OF VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN CALABAR MARCH 2020

According to recent studies by the World Bank, 53.5% of Nigerians live below the poverty line of $1.90 a day. Also, persons living in female-headed households are more likely to live below the poverty line. Furthermore, individuals with higher education have significantly lower chances of being poor. Another study by Dapel, Z. of the Center for Global Development at the University of Dundee concluded that years of schooling are found to have the strongest negative impact on chronic poverty and that stepping up the education of girls can mitigate teenage pregnancies and consequently address population rise among the poor.

The reality is that our society in Cross River State Nigeria is one in which 84% of the most vulnerable households are households in which women are responsible for the care of children due to the non-availability of a man either physically or financially. Care for children includes food, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare. This phenomenon is a major driver of poverty and vulnerability in our society, resulting in children who are unable to complete schooling because their mother is unable to afford even the most basic financial educational obligations preferring to deploy her children either to do petty trading or to grow food or both.

It is for these reasons that the Professor Charles Effiong Foundation launched a program to support the education of fifty vulnerable children who would otherwise not be able to attend school. The beneficiaries of the project are typically bright children who drop out of school because their mother can no longer afford required educational expenses which include basic education fees as well as the cost of a school uniform, a school bag and sandals, text and exercise books and writing pens and pencils. Presently the program provides support for children for primary and secondary education. It is our desire in the future to provide tertiary education or/and skill development support to those who graduate from the program.

The program is not limited to providing these essentials for the children but includes psychosomatic support through monthly kids’ clubs' meetings, coordination and support for their caregivers through the quarterly caregiver’s forum meetings, as well as monitoring and evaluation of the children’s’ attendance at school, behavior at school and at home and academic performance. The children are subject to a basic code of conduct to qualify and remain in the program and their mothers commit to putting their education first.

Presently, thirty vulnerable children are beneficiaries of the program and have been sponsored through the 2019/2020 academic session and are involved in monthly kids club meetings. Our objective is to support fifty children in the first instance and ultimately explore the possibilities of working with their caregivers to take over the responsibility of providing for their children. In the short term, the project is expected to support the children’s education through the provision fees and other requirements for education, improve academic excellence among children in the project through the regular home and school visits, payment of medical bills as well as the provision of psychosocial services such as counseling (individual/family), recreational activities, positive parenting and economic strengthening for caregivers to ensure the sustainability of children in schools after project year. When sponsors agree to support the project, one or more children are assigned to them and they are sent regular updates on the progress, welfare and academic performance of the children.

During the quarter, we paid 2nd term school fees for all thirty children, paid the external West African Examinations Council fees for six kids who are sitting for the exam in June. We held the Kids Club meeting each month and interacted with the children. We obtained a report from the teachers on their attendance and academic performance in school for the first term and sent reports to their sponsors. We visited parents and children at home that required additional follow up and we designed and delivered birthday cards for the kids whose birthdays fell during the period.

Presently, twenty additional vulnerable children have been identified for enrollment but are awaiting the availability of funding to join the program. $240 per annum ($20/month) will cover the cost of school fees, provide school uniforms, school bags, sandals, text and exercise books as well as pay health bills and cover the costs of counseling, psychosomatic support and monitoring for one child for a year. GlobalGiving will match donations of up to $50 at 50% in the Little by Little Campaign from the 23^rd to the 27^th of March and will match the first month’s gift for recurring monthly gifts of $20. We, therefore, ask that you partner with us put our children back in school and transform the livelihoods of the most vulnerable in our society. Kindly click on http://goto.gg/44223 to make your donation.

Thank you.

Group Interaction at Kids Club Meeting

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.