From Umar Dankano, Yola
Stakeholders have appealed to the federal and state governments to enhance initiatives aimed at helping low-income families including those with children.
State actors and journalists made the appeal at a two day capacity building workshop held in Gombe state, Wednesday, stressing that the feat is with a view to addressing child poverty constraints.
In his welcome remarks, Opeyemi Olagunju, Communication Officer,UNICEF Field Office, Bauchi, applauded the commitment of journalists in contributing to changing the narrative of every situation at hand, urging them to promote good policies towards mitigating the negative trends for the emancipation of the societies.
Olagunju said journalists as major catalysts in mediation need to beam their professional torchlights on highlighting crucial issues affecting the future leaders especially the children, noting that, Nigerian children constitutes about half of the nation’s population.
He added that Unicef as a development partner has been supporting policies of government with direct impact on the populace, assuring that more intervention have already underlined by the organization for implemention across the globe calling on policy makers to do the needful in addressing child poverty due to its sensitive nature towards national development.
Collaborating the plea, Social policy specialist,UNICEF Bauchi Field Office,BFO. Dr.Yusuf Auta advised journalists to champion the lot of Nigerian children who are groomed for leadership role in the future.
Auta stated that, available research have revealed that children are either facing monetary poverty or multi-dimensional poverty which makes it difficult for them to compete with their peers who do not experience such deprivations.
He maintained that,it has been established that, corruption, unemployment, violence and insurgency, inadequate investment in social sector, insufficient money from social security benefits are some of the factors behind the preponderance of child poverty.
