Scholarship and Grants Programme
The scholarship & grants programme is one of the Funds’ interventions in the region. Thousands of young people are disenfranchised from the society due to the financial inability to secure any form of education. This has over the years led to dismal socioeconomic indices of the region. The Fund is anxious to address these gaps by providing funding and access to formal and informal education opportunities. Especially for orphans, the girl child and other less privileged children.
To ensure fairness among and across all communities, achieve gender equity and achieve human capital development favourable for socioeconomic growth in an STI (Science, Technology and Innovation) knowledge-driven development in the NE Region, the award of scholarships will be based on the following criteria:
The Fund will immediately commence with developing selection criteria and the application process. This will be carried out using a software application to enable accurate and fair assessment and selection of beneficiaries. The processes for selection and awards of scholarship will begin immediately.
The medical profession was also targeted by the Boko Haram onslaught. This resulted in fatalities and significant migration of medical personnel from the Northeast.
This has thrown up the need for a rapid training and retraining of nurses, midwives, and community health workers (CHWs) to reinforce the quality of medical service in communities across the region; while State governments rapidly recruit and build up their personnel numbers.
This is even more critical considering the pandemic that has added a new dimension to the crisis in the region.
Sport is another sector that declined as a result of the destruction and closure of schools. The sports sector contributes greatly in social cohesion and conflict resolution; it can build bridges across diverse lines of divide and mend fences between individuals and groups.
This unique opportunity was missed throughout the period of conflict and, due to its relevance, should be promoted now to enhance social cohesion. The Fund is to develop a curricular that would revive the sporting activities by introduction of sports festivals and competitions across the north east to hunt for talents that would be recognized and selected for sponsorship to sports academies nationally and internationally.
The Fund would also undertake Campaigns against substance Abuse to enlighten the youth on the negative effects of consuming poisonous substances with the aim of achieving a more productive youth population in the north east region.
Teachers were the hardest hit by the insurgency as they were seen as direct agents of western education. Prior to the crisis the quantity and quality of teaching capacity in the region has been abysmal.
This has a significant impact on basic education and it is therefore, a critical priority of NEDC-EEF to quickly build up the capacity of teachers all across the region and especially in the Borno, Adamawa and Yobe that bore the brunt of the insurgency.
The other three states will also need significant reinforcement due to the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and the additional pressure to the educational system. It is also necessary that as schools resume, teachers are adequately prepared to implement the management protocols for the COVID pandemic, thereby ensuring the safety of students and staff.