R.E.A.D Program
Quality education for all is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030, however, the attainability of this is put into question as the number of children who do not have access to education is highly outrageous. Based on a recent report by the United Nations, about 244 million children and young people are out of school worldwide, Sub-Saharan Africa has been confirmed to be the region with the highest number of people excluded from education, and In Nigeria, about 20 million children and young people do not still have access to education.
The right to education is a basic fundamental human right but the large numbers above suggest that a lot of people are deprived of this right. The need and importance for education has gone past the era of it being debatable and deliberated upon. Its necessity has proven to be crucial to man’s existence and a driver of sustainable development, economic, social and political growth. It also assures man of an improved quality of life.
Rochas Foundation in a bid to reduce the number of out of school children established it 13 schools across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria to tend to the needs of the less-privileged by providing free and quality education, it also extended it humanitarian act to the rest of Africa with its establishment of the Rochas Foundation College of Africa (ROFOCA) targeted at providing 5 less privileged children from 55 African countries with quality education annually.
The Foundation recognizes the many factors that contribute to the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, one of which is Emergency Situations such as war, crisis, terrorism, fire outbreaks, building collapse, flood and many others. In as much as the foundation is passionate about providing education for all, it is logically impossible to enroll all of the millions of out of school children in Nigeria into the Rochas Foundation schools due to factors such as location and overstretching of available facilities.
Hence, to bridge this existing gap the foundation inaugurated the Rochas Foundation Education Aid and Development (READ) Initiative.
READ is an initiative that wages war against illiteracy. The core aim of the initiative is to combat and reduce illiteracy to the barest minimum by providing educational aids to ensure the accessibility and development of all in education. Hence, the READ initiative was pioneered to provide educational facilities, tools, equipment and scholarship schemes to support the process of providing education for all and to aid their educational experience. It starts off by first addressing the identified education-related needs and next providing educational aids to meet these needs. With its target to ensure that no lesser than 15 million children are taken off the street and back to school, the initiative also proffers 1000 grants to indigenous organizations that are evidently making an impact in the educational sector as part of its educational aid.
In past years the READ initiative have carried out educational aid interventions in IDP camps at Wassa and Karinmajiji in Abuja, Benue camp and also provided educational aids to the victims of the Itafaji Building Collapse in 2019.
With inclusivity as a major principle of the READ initiative, the initiative identifies other categories of out of school children such as the Almajiris in the north, orphans, children living with disabilities, children from poor homes and poor communities, and is heavily invested in providing educational aids that can guaranty them a seamless educational experience.
The Foundation is also willing to partner with other credible Governmental and Non-governmental institution and organization, stakeholder and civil societies whose goals and objectives align with the Read initiative to achieve the total success of the project.
