THE National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), Sahara Deck, has donated reading and writing materials to a community school in the Kuje area council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in commemoration of the 2022 International Literacy Day.
The Pyrates joined UNESCO and other progressive groups to commemorate the 2022 International Literacy Day, themed, ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces’.
This was disclosed in a statement released on Thursday by Capoon Sahara Deck, Olamide Oni.
The statement said the statistics on out of school children in Abuja is appalling.
“We are further appalled by the available statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), that over 52,000 children are currently out of school in Abuja. And out of 40.8 million children of school age in Nigeria, 10.2 million children are estimated to be out of school,” the statement said.
Oni added that his leadership plans to engage with the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and the Universal Basic Education Commission, (UBEC) to increase school enrolment and take more children away from the streets.
He assured that the Pyrates Confraternity will sponsor the children up to senior secondary school level.
According to Oni, the organisation had previously launched advocacy programs to promote literacy in the Nigerian polity, specifically within the FCT and environs.
Sahara Deck launched the ‘Adopt-a-child’ project in December 2021 to address the issue of out-of-school children within the FCT.
“We have previously adopted Karu orphanage home, Karu, Abuja, where we donated books to equip their library, as well as computers and air conditioners to create a conducive learning environment for the kids in the orphanage.
“By observing the International Literacy Day, as commemorated around the world every 8 September, we are simply sustaining the tempo across the globe to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of human dignity and human rights and to advance the literacy agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society as championed by UNESCO,” he added.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M