Meadow Hall Foundation’s Core Centre kicked off on Monday, the 18th of February, 2019 with its pilot centre in Ikorodu, in partnership with Trinity House, Ikorodu Parish, Lagos. It is intended that centres like this would be run in partnership with religious bodies and other organisations to provide out of school children a place where they can have access to learning the core academic skills of numeracy, literacy, ICT and also vocational skills and civic education.

According to statistics from the UN, Nigeria is among top three countries with the world’s highest number of children that are out of school – with numbers ranging between 10 and 13.2 million children. Nigeria accounts for more than one in five out of school children globally and 45 percent of out of school children in West Africa.

This poses a problem for the social and economic development of Nigeria. A high percentage of these children are left to fend for themselves either by hawking on the streets or being forced into a life of crime to survive. Some of these children are drawn from rural areas to the urban cities in hope of greener pastures only to be exploited. This exposes them to physical and emotional trauma, and worst of all, sexual harassment.

Nigeria is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which affirms that every child has a right to education. Yet there are children whose access to education has been cut off. This is an ongoing epidemic that increases in number by the year. The foundation’s goal according to Mr Tola Oni, the Head of the Foundation, is that by the end of the year, the programme should be able to have these children capable of reading and writing as well as have basic mathematical skills and the ability to perform basic ICT functions.

The children will have access to the library situated in the Centre to aid their learning.

Meadow Hall Foundation was pleased to have Pastor Ituah Ighodalo bring Trinity House on board this initiative of ensuring that the goal of inclusive, equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all is achieved as stated in goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The initiative birthed by Mrs. Kehinde Nwani, (CEO of Meadow Hall Group and Founder, Meadow Hall Foundation) is one very dear to her heart.