Foundation Sensitises C'River Students On Child Rights, Social Justice
By Ndifereke BASSEY
In commemoration of the 2024 Children's Day, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Feed a Hungry Child With Brianna Foundation, carried out a three-day sensitisation campaign in some schools in Cross River state to raise awareness about child rights and social justice.
The child rights sensitisation exercise tagged "Know Your Rights" was approved by the management of two schools in Calabar after the Foundation had approached the schools.
The first edition was held on Wednesday, May 29, at the Lourdes Academy, Calabar another was held on Friday, May 31 2024 at the Holychild College, Mary Slesssor, Calabar.
During the visits by the Foundation, educative interactions and teachings on child rights, how to enforce the rights and demand social justice in the society were delivered to the students.
The exercise which was led by the founder of the foundation, Barr. Briana Akpagu and supported by the offices of the Deputy Governor of Cross River State and the Senator representing Cross River South Senatorial district, included the donation of bags to the students.
Speaking to reporters after the event, Akpagu said that with the growing cases of bullying and right abuses in schools, her team considered it necessary to embark on the project of creating awareness about the right of every Nigerian Child in schools.
She thanked the management of the schools for the approval and opportunity provided to the foundation to improve awareness on child rights and social justice in secondary schools.
While thanking the Deputy Governor of the state, Rt. Hon. Peter Odey, the Senator representing Cross River South Senatorial district, Sen. Asuquo Ekpenyong, and all those who supported the programme, she insisted that her foundation remains committed to providing for street children and creating robust awareness on the right of Nigeria children.
According to her, "I want to start by thanking the management of the two schools we staged this programme for giving us this opportunity to interact with the students about their rights and how to enforce them. If Nigeria must improve on the social justice index then it's important to begin to teach the young ones their rights and how to respect other people's rights.
Even though our foundation is particularly focused on feeding and providing for street children, we decided to mark this year's children's day differently by staging this event. This is our first edition and I'm very happy that it was not only embraced by the two schools we approached but even the students. You need to see how excited they were and some of the questions they asked in the course of our interactions. We hope to package a more robust event like this in the future".
