Christ Embassy donates back-to-school kits to 100 pupils in Kaduna

Christ Embassy’s Inner City Mission for Children has donated back-to-school kits to 100 pupils of Universal Basic Education (UBE) Primary School, Banono community in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the mission gave the donation in collaboration with Pastor Christ Oyakhilome’s Foundation, which chose the community among several communities in the area that suffered recurrent attacks by gunmen that displaced thousands of people including women and children.

Pastor Marcel Obode of Christ Embassy, Northwest Zone 1, identified the kits to include school uniforms, bags, shoes, books and other writing materials needed by pupils for their schooling.

ALSO READ: CBN says Nigerian companies, individuals free to buy treasury bills

Obode said on Thursday while distributing the items at Banono that the gesture, under Christ Embassy’s Back-to-School Campaign 2019, was to support the children displaced by recurrent attacks to enable them to return to school.

“We are here in response to the needs of the community, particularly the vulnerable children who are forced out of school by recurrent attacks.

“We are not only donating back-to-school kits, but also handing over a renovated block of two classrooms to UBE Banono.

“We are equally distributing food items, clothes and other needed items to those in need in the community to help alleviate their suffering,” he said.

According to him, the gesture is part of Pastor Christ Oyakhilome’s Foundation and Christ Embassy’s Inner City Mission for Children efforts to reach out to the needy and the forgotten in “hard-to-reach communities’’.

The Chairman of the Back-to-School Campaign, Pastor Rudolph Smith, said that the intervention was among many in the pipeline for vulnerable children and hard-to-reach communities in the state.

Smith said that the campaign hoped to support and return about 500 primary school pupils in six hard-to-reach vulnerable communities in the venture.

Malam Ishaku Simon, the Education Secretary in the local government thanked Christ Embassy organisations for the gesture, which he described as commendable.

Simon called on other corporate organisations, institutions and individuals to emulate Christ Embassy in supporting the state government to provide quality education in the state.

The Village Head, Mr John Makaddas, equally commended the church for coming to their aid, adding that the support would encourage all parents to send their children to school.

Makaddas said that the community suffered three attacks by gunmen; the first one was in July 2017, another in July 2018 and the recent one in April 2019.

He said that the attacks displaced no fewer than 5,000 people in the community and houses were burnt along with children’s uniforms, books and other school kits.

He said that since the attacks, the children were attending school without uniforms and writing materials, while many others stopped going to school.

According to him, the support will go a long way in helping the community members send their children back to school.

The village head also said that the community lacked basic amenities like communication network, electricity, access road, health facility and clean drinking water.

Makaddas called on the local government authority and the state government to come to the community’s aid.

NAN