NEW YORK – Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, in New York on Thursday expressed hope in moves taken by Nigeria to rescue the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
Brown while briefing UN correspondents, urged the parents of the d girls “not to lose hope of their girls coming back”.
“I hear that some of the parents of the girls want to start conducting funerals for their children. I also hear that it is a tradition that if one’s child has been missing for months, they hold funerals and mourn because they believe that the girls will never come back.
“I say to the parents of these girls not to lose hope,” he said.
Brown also said that the Nigerian Government had been “unfairly criticised” for the way it is handling the rescue.
“I understand that these girls are being kept in one place. I hear they have been separated in groups but Federal Government is being cautious on the way it will handle the rescue so as not to put the girls in any form of danger,” he said.
Brown also commended President Goodluck Jonathan for launching the “Safe Schools Initiative”.
He said the initiative would help protect hundreds of schools in Nigeria in response to the growing number of attacks on the right to education in the country.
“The Safe Schools Initiative will start by reaching more than 500 schools in the Northern states of Nigeria through a 10 million dollars fund pledged by a coalition of Nigerian business leaders, working with the UN, the Global Business Coalition for Education and A World at School.
Brown said the initiative would ensure all schools in Nigeria were e safe from attacks in the future.
He said this had become imperative because “we cannot stand by and see schools shut down, girls cut off from their education and parents in fear for their daughters’ lives.” [eap_ad_1] Brown said the initiative would start by building community security groups to promote safe zones for education, consisting of teachers, parents, police, community leaders and young people.
“The programme will focus on bolstering the safety of schools – providing school guards and police in partnership with Nigerian authorities, training staff as school safety officers and providing counsellors to schools at risk of attack,” he said.
On April 14, some schoolgirls were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in f Chibok, Borno, by Boko Haram terrorists.
Brown told correspondents that there were 59 million children still out of school, 32 million of them are girls.
He stressed the need for more partnerships with private sector, civil society and youth groups to educate every child.
“Time may be running out on the MDGs, but there is hope, if we can pressure all nations to make education for every child the first priority and a universal right, regardless of borders,” he said.
[eap_ad_4]