The Agbami parties, comprising Star Deepwater Petroleum Ltd (A Chevron Company), NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services Ltd (NUIMS), Famfa Oil Ltd; Equinor Nigeria Energy Ltd; and Prime 127 Nigeria Ltd, have donated a model classroom block to Special Education Centre, Agbor, Delta State.
Director, Star Deepwater Petroleum Ltd, Michelle Pflueger, in her address at the inauguration of the facility weekend, thanked the state government and the people for their support and partnership, underscoring the social investment initiatives of the partners across Nigeria.
“Beyond our core business, the improvement of the quality of life of the people is an important value to the Agbami parties.
“From Lagos to Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, and Kaduna, Maiduguri to Port Harcourt, the Agbami parties have continued to add value through our social investment initiatives.
“Several other projects in the areas of education, health and economic development are either on-going or completed across the country. These include science laboratories, model classroom blocks and chest clinics, among others.
“Today the parties are adding even more with this Model Classroom Block that we
are donating to the Special Needs School. Please join me in applauding the Agbami parties.
“We have, in addition, instituted specialized educational scholarship programs in
support of manpower development in Nigeria through targeted support for medical, nursing, laboratory sciences and engineering students. And we are happy that many of our students in Delta State have benefitted from this scholarship scheme.
“It is our hope that today’s donation will lay the foundation that will enable students with special needs to achieve their life-long aspirations and compete favourably in their future endeavours among individuals from various backgrounds as they complete their studies successfully and develop into critical manpower assets for our dear nation,” she noted.
Speaking to the excited students, Pflueger encouraged them to make the best of the opportunity available to acquire sound education to emerge as upright and highly competent professionals who would make Nigeria proud at all times.
Responding to the donation, principal of the school, Francisca Ezehi, who appreciated the donors, disclosed that the facility has six well-furnished classrooms, science laboratory, library, sickbay, toilets, and well-spaced walkway, as well as a big, sound-proof generating set, a borehole, a water system and ceiling fans, among others.
She, however, reeled out some other challenges confronting the school, which was established in 1995, to include, porous security as a result of low perimeter fence and absence of security personnel, thereby endangering the facility, inadequate funding and teaching staff, and lack of buses for mobility, among others, while calling on the state government and other well-meaning private sector players to assist the school.
Chief Upstream Investment Officer, NUIMS, Bala Wunti, and the representative of the state government, Augustine Oghoro, who’s the permanent secretary, Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, urged the school management to make judicious use of the facility, just as Oghoro urged other stakeholders in the private sector to support development of their host communities.
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