NUT distributes meals to 1,000 displaced children in Borno

The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) in Borno on Saturday distributed nutritious meal to 1,000 children at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in Maiduguri.

Alhaji Kaka-Ali Abba, the Education Secretary, Maiduguri Municipal Council, said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri, that the gesture was to mark the 2017 World Teachers Day.

Abba said the association had initiated a free meal programme to encourage enrolment and retention in schools at the IDPs camps in the state.

He added that the programme was also designed to augment government’s emergency food intervention and enhance nutritional intake of children displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.

The secretary disclosed that nutritious meal were distributed to the affected children at Bulabulin Primary School, Bakassi and Teachers’ House IDPs camps, as part of activities lined up to mark the 2017 World Teachers Day.

“The association spent about N1 million on the feeding, it is a monthly exercise to be funded from our dues and contributions from members.

“This is to assist displaced children and encourage them to go to school,” he said.

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Abba said that the union had also provided relief materials and cash support to the families of teachers, who lost their lives in the crisis.

He said that the basic education sector was the worst hit by the Boko Haram insurgency, adding that hundreds of teachers were killed and school structures destroyed by the insurgents.

According to him, over 500 teachers were killed and many others abducted or maimed in the past eight years in the state.