By Edoamaowo Udeme
She ran out with a smile, struggled to descend the two steps down to meet us, she only succeeded in sitting on the floor while struggling to descend so badly, it doesn’t matter who we were but her innocent hug got me thinking.
I hugged her carried her to my bosom with a smile but when I made to drop her, All hell was let loose, she squealed and clung to me, I laughed through my tears.
Initially I thought she was the teachers child since most teachers usually take their toddlers to school with them, but when I realized that she was wearing the school uniform, I realized that she was there to study.
The youngest in the whole school, 1 year three months old Ngozi Ufuru is a pupil, not in a creche but in Early Child Development (ECD) class in a Anuli primary school in Ezinifite in Anambra state.
Her parents are both struggling to make ends meet so Ngozi is sent to a public school in diapers daily till 3pm when her trader mother returns to pick her.
Ngozi’ s school teacher, Mrs Florence Umezinwa, said she is happy that the government established ECD because
“Instead of mothers taking their children to farms and markets, the children are well cared for here, they don’t eat what they like, and do not liter.
“I have been teaching for 28 years in different schools but I am now handling the ECD in this school. I am from this community and water has always been a big problem”
“Our women and children suffered to get water as we walked miles to fetch in the neighboring community. Sometime, we were molested on the lonely paths to the stream”
A mother of five, Grace Umeh, said “My children sometimes skipped school while some dropped out totally all because they couldn’t wake up as early as 4 am to look for water”.
“ Diarrhea and cholera was so bad that if it happens in schools we will be very scared because children used dirty hands to eat and there wasn’t adequate water to do anything. she added
since our community never had water, we are grateful to them ” Said Umeh.
“All these wouldn’t have been possible European Union (EU) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had not blessed this community and schools with boreholes, said Florence,” I pray that UNICEF extends this gesture to some other communities in Nigeria that lacks water like we used to, Our children are now back in the classrooms, they are always neat and clean thanks to the introduction of Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)”
“As you can see, there is water everywhere, Children are trained to wash hands before and after eating, even with a borehole right in front of us, the little ones use tippy-taps to wash”. added Florence
“I can tell you that the reason we have so many children in ECD including Ngozi is that there is always water to clean them up and to drink, you can see how clean this environment is, all schools have this same privilege we have you will be surprised at how many children will enroll in schools”
“Our children are now very neat and clean, the new toilets are quite clean and children are very comfortable using it all thanks to EU/UNICEF, and I am so glad to tell you that they are back in school”. Said Umeh.
Ezinifite community is spotlessly clean, very clean that it has been added as one of the communities that is Open Defecation Free.
Several communities in Nigeria have benefited in EU/UNICEF WASH Program and school enrollment is in the increase.
As for little Ngozi, it is debatable if she is actually eligible or too young to be in an ECD, in a public school where only N600,00 is paid as Parents Teachers Association fee per term, or in a creche where some parents pay as high as N20,000 in that area that she lives. It is a topic for another day but all I remember is that she wept bitterly when I was leaving. The memory lingers…. I miss Ngozi.
