Governor Abubakar Pledges To Run Successful Project For Vulnerable Children

Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State has promised to accord all the necessary support for the success to run the At-Risk Children Project (ARC-P) in the state.

Bello gave the assurance when he received a delegation in charge of the project led by the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Hajiya Maryam Uwais in Abuja.

He described the initiative as complementing the state government's commitment towards the wellbeing of vulnerable children and youth.

While commending the Federal Government for coming up with such a scheme he added that it would address the plight of the less privileged children and young adults in the society. 

Earlier, Hajiya Maryam Uwais explained that the Scheme which is under the Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government is designed to empower children and young people without skills and education.

Hajiya Uwais said that one of the strategies to be used to achieve the goal of the programme is to train educated and unemployed youth in various areas such as entrepreneurship, Agriculture, financial skills, literacy and numeracy, security awareness and sports among others.

According to her, "after the training, we will now assign those vulnerable children to the trained youth for mentoring after securing the consent of their parents, guardians and mallams and they will give us report every month".

She said Niger State invited us to come and see how we can support them to add value to what they are already doing pointing out that the team had already inspected facilities provided by the state government in Minna.

Hajiya Uwais said though the programme has commenced, Niger State Government would sign a Memorandum of Understanding that would define the roles and responsibilities of Federal and State Governments in the scheme.

So far, ARC-P has kick-started in Gombe, Sokoto, Borno, Kaduna and Ekiti with more States indicating interests.