A Facebook group comprising of Oko indigenes operating under the group name “I Love Oko Town (ILOT)” has distributed over 2,000 exercise books free of charge to the pupils of all the public primary schools in the community in an event to flagged off her “One Child, One Exercise Book Initiative” under the auspices of “Our Children Must Go To School Exercise”.
The exercise is a yearly project targeted at providing free writing materials to all the public primary schools in rural areas, starting with Oko community in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State.
The event which attracted some prominent sons and daughters of the community and beyond held recently at the St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Oko Hall.
The group speaking through the Chairman of 2018 project’s planning committee, Mr. Peter Okoli emphasized the need for the pupils to take their education very serious adding that the group was founded to render selfless services to the community.
The manager of the project, Mr. Chuka Nnanna Okeke described the initiative as an auspicious social innovation that buttressed every child’s right to free, quality and inclusive education.
He said that the project was inspired by the good deeds of one of the town’s foremost philanthropist and former Vice President of Nigeria, Late Dr. Alex Ekwueme who used his Ekwueme Memorial Trust Fund to sponsor the education of many people within and outside Nigeria.
“The Ekwueme factor will continue to make far reaching impacts in our society and this is also our own way of facilitating the achievement of United Nations’ SDGs No. 4”, Mr. Okeke added.
The Headmistress of Okwute Primary School Oko, Mrs. Ngozi Ezenekwe while appreciating the group on behalf of other heads of schools, expressed their happiness at the uncommon generosity of the group.
She however lamented over some of the challenges facing the schools, ranging from shortage of teachers to decaying facilities in the schools.
She called on the group to intervene and also do whatever they could to attract government attention to their plight.
It will be recalled that this year’s edition is the third in the series since the annual programme commenced in 2016.
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