COVID19 School Resumption: Another Set of Female Students Lost to Early Marriage

Whispering Hope Africa Initiative (WHAI) continues her visitation to schools in the riverine communities to ascertain the situation of students post COVID-19, as schools reopen.

WHAI Team was at the COMMUNITY SECONDARY SCHOOL, IGBAKWU, where we sat with the school principal to ascertain the situation of things most especially as regards to the the number of students returning to school after the COVID-19 lockdown.

The team was introduced and the mission and vision of WHAI and the visit was made known to principal.

She is newly posted to the school and coupled that the school just resumed, she cannot give proper record till next week when the students must have resumed properly. After discussing with the principal, she gave WHAI Team go ahead to meet and interact with the students.

On interacting with the students on how they spent the COVID-19 holiday, some said they read their books while others said they went farming.

The students expressed they lost four female students from their class who got married during the COVID-19 holiday. They were encouraged for returning to the school and motivated to take their studies serious for the future belongs to those who are able to complete at least high school.

COVID19 School Resumption: Early Marriage and Pregnancy on the Rise

Whispering Hope Africa Initiative (WHAI) was at the Amikwe Community Secondary School in Ayemelum LGA on the 15th day of September to ascertain the situation of students post COVID- 19, as schools are just resuming.

The school principal, Mr Nweke Raymond said that there is no much dropout because the Parents Teachers’ Association (PTA) usually raise money to support the schools. The community crisis with a neighboring community at times makes both the teachers and the student have preference on schools they want to attend and teach.

The population of Senior Secondary (SS) 1 students ranges from 90 to 95 in number but when they get to SS2 and SS3 it reduces from 84 to 53 respectively.

Observation from the school's register shows that in 2019, total number of senior class students was 232 but currently 208, showing that approximately 25 students dropped out of schools for various reasons but mostly due to poverty and early marriage. The school fees ranges between $4 -$7 per term (approx. $20 one academic year). According to the principal, the school is facing the problem of lack of teachers; only 14 teachers to 684 students. The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members usually posted to the school are unable to teach properly. The school also needs to be fenced, because it exposes the students to danger and some easily disappear from the school unnoticed. He said they cannot fence the school on their own because they lack the financial capability.

From the principal's office, WHAI Team went to the senior classes to address and dialogue with the students. The students revealed some of their classmates who recently dropped out from school because of marriage and economical challenge. We congratulated them for making it back to school and implore them to focus on their studies and try as much possible to complete their high hbefore thinking of marriage

We congratulated them for making it back to school and implore them to focus on their studies and try as much possible to complete high school before thinking of marriage.

The WHAI team members for the field work are Ezinwa Chinyere, Uche Enem, Godstime Obimeziem and Udegboka Nkechi.

It's Digital Literacy Day for Us

Today is International Literacy Day and this week,, we continue to offer Digital Literacy. Few selected kids from the informal settings undergoing WHAI free digital skills started the Arduino programming language.

The selected kids are meant to coach other kids on how to code with Arduino uno.

They started with learning about electronics, touching and feeling every component.

The kids extracted the Arduino raw file from the internet, copied it unto the flash drive and went round the laptops to install the software themselves.

After the installations, learning about electronics, watching some videos on how Arduino works, they are set to starting learning the codes after which they build their own project.

It was so fun and exciting for the kids that some wouldn't want to go home again.

Thanks to the volunteer student engineer, Ezea Emmanuel and all our supporters making the students useful during the pandemic.

On this Literacy Day, the kids will be coding while you read them out. 😀

Happy International Literacy Day