By J. Archibong
According to Dame Patience Jonathan, “The children are the future of the world, and nothing could be too much to do to guarantee their prospects.”
“Education is an asset, and it is the best legacy that could be given to a child.” “Education without morals cannot lead to success in life.”
The above statements were made by Dame Patience Jonathan during her visit to the SOS Children’s Village, Nairobi, Kenya. She urged the children to pay attention to their teachers and study hard in order to become great in the future.
Dame Patience Jonathan has counseled on child education. According to her, the future of the nation depends on the quality of education the children are given. Parents should endeavour to give quality education to their wards. Parents must ensure that children are in school and attend classes. They must also train their female children because to train them is to train the nation. She said this at the commissioning of a college project by the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association.
Female Education
Dame Patience Jonathan is a promoter of education for women and girls as the panacea to Nigeria’s developmental challenges and a solution to the problems of poverty and exploitation. Education is the key to nation-building. In order to ensure a bright future and a progressive society, girls must have equal access to education, and every woman should be able to read and write. As she stated at the Crane Montana Forum on Africa in Brussels, a “population with a higher percentage of literate women and girls shows a relative increase in productivity decrease in child mortality, and improvements in the quality of life for its citizens.”
Dame Patience Jonathan extolled the National Mathematical Centre (NMC) for encouraging the girl-child to study mathematics through the establishment of creative methods that assist in the study of the subject. This has attracted and sustained the interest of female students in the study of mathematics. She said the introduction of a special competition that produced “Mathematics Queen” was a step in the right direction. Dame Patience Jonathan made the declaration in an address at the opening ceremony of the 8th Pan-African Congress of Mathematics (PACOM) in Abuja.
Children with heart problems
Some children are born with heart disorder problems. The diagnosis, treatment, and very often, surgery can be very expensive for families who have children with hearing problems. Some indigent mothers have very often turned to faith healers or traditional medicine in a bid to find a cure for their child’s ailing heart.
Some public-spirited individuals and philanthropic organizations have been a God-send in helping to treat children with heart problems free of charge or for a token amount.
She was in the business of saving lives. The First Lady had, through her humanitarian activities, served the lives of thousands of Nigerians.
Over the years, hundreds of children have benefited from free heart surgery and treatment from this initiative and are currently in excellent conditions of health. To be quoted.
She has emphasized the need for children to stay healthy. Nigerians have also shown deep appreciation to the First Lady for her passion, zeal, and determination to improve the well-being and ensure the advancement of the quality of life of Nigerian children. The children also express and extend their felicitations to Dame Patience Jonathan for her motherly love, care, and kindness towards them in particular and the less privileged in general.
The First Lady has demonstrated her love and care for children in numerous ways. One of them is through the provision of healthcare to children. The A. Aruera Reachout Foundation, one of her NGOs, had underwritten the medical bills for the treatment of children with heart disorders in Nigeria. Heart ailments that are more serious and difficult to treat in Nigeria were referred to experts abroad.
A group of medical doctors from the Apollo Hospital, Chennai, India, came to Nigeria on June 13, 2013, to examine new cases of heart disorder involving children. They were also scheduled to carry out checks on children who had gone through surgery in India. They were supported by some Nigerian Consultant Paediatric Cardiologists.
The doctors attended to eighty-six children at the clinic at A. Aruera Reach-out Foundation Headquarters in Gwarinpa, Abuja.
Youth empowerment
Dame Patience Jonathan was passionate about youth matters. Of particular concern to her has been the issue of youth involvement in crime, violence, and militancy, which can be tackled by empowering them. At the inauguration of a Youth Skill Acquisition Centre, Dame Patience Jonathan said:
“I am confident that the training programmes and skills to be imparted in this centre will provide a robust platform for youth empowerment, job creation, moral re-orientation, and acquisition of work-based competences for self-reliance, social security, and nation-building.”
“Our youths are not only talented, but also have great potential that can be harnessed for the socio-economic development of our nation.”
“I therefore wish to call on the youths to reciprocate the government’s gesture by using their talents positively, as well as remain patriotic and responsive to the government’s youth empowerment programme.”
“I also need to emphasize that empowering the youths will help achieve peace in our nation because when the youths are not gainfully employed, they become instruments of violence.”
“This gesture will give them the necessary skills to enable them to generate income to take care of their needs, as well as contribute to building peace in our nation.” The First Lady said.
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