..holds familiarisation meeting with selected LGAs’ project Coordinators
The Wife of the Governor of Ondo State, Chief Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, has affirmed that the At-Risk-Children Project, ARC-P, would further reduce the poverty burden of the state.
She gave this affirmation earlier today during a familiarisation meeting with Local Government Coordinators of ARC-P, held at Rotunda Government house ground, Alagbaka Akure, the State capital.
She commended the doggedness of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Gender and Secretary of the ARC-P Advisory Committee, Mrs. Olamide Falana in ensuring that the state benefitted from the programme.
Addressing the ARC-P Coordinators, the Ondo First Lady, who doubles as the Chairperson of the project Advisory Committee said: “Your position is very strategic and we really want to move fast, and I thought that when we have 50 facilitators from local government, we’ll need a Coordinator; we need somebody like a middle man between the local and the State governments and that was how this idea of having Coordinators came in.
According to her, the selection was premised on the expectation that they’re in the better position to know their localities in order to make the project implementation processes seamless and achieve its purpose.
She said: “I don’t want anybody living in Akure working in Akoko, it will not work, if you’re representing Akoko you must come from Akoko and I hope you all live in your communities. You are in a better position to know your people, to know the needs and where the gaps are”.
Earlier in her address, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Gender, and Secretary of the ARC-P Advisory Committee in Ondo State, Mrs. Olamide Falana, congratulated the beneficiaries and applauded the effort of the First Lady in ensuring that unemployed graduates were injected into the programme as Coordinators in a bid to empower them.
She intimated them with the task ahead, explaining that ARC-P intended to reach vulnerable and out-of-school children in various communities across the state.
She emphasised that they were all expected to be residents in the LGA they represented, noting that vulnerable children were from a local community, and households.
“ARC-P is not for children alone but young people who are under the age of 24 who we believe by the time we impact positive skills in them, they will go ahead to become empowered to support themselves with livelihood, support their families and become responsible adults who can give back to the society”. Says Falana.
She informed that they would work closely with 50 facilitators from the local government level who would soon be shortlisted from the ARC-P Portal, adding that they must ensure all nooks and crannies of each community is covered.
Falana highlighted the key pillars of the project to include, basic literacy and numeracy skills, health and nutrition, entrepreneurial and financial literacy skills, creativity and digital skills, cultural environment and climate change, security sports and incentivisation intervention package.
She further informed that the Project implementation would take the form of need assessment data of every local area, before choosing any skill acquisition for beneficiaries in a given community.
The Ondo First Lady, thereafter, met with members of the ARC-P Advisory Committee to chart way forward on the successful implementation of the project .
Mary Agidi
Special Assistant to the Governor on Media (Office of the First Lady)
Jan. 9, 2022
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