http://opr.news/s13b2ec93200226en_ng?country=ng&language=en&client=news
One battle won! Kudos! Opens a new theatre and a fresh battle front though – one touching on the child directly and the other in an indirect manner. The child beggar must be returned to school. Some serious work on mapping – schools and beneficiary mapping is therefore necessary. We need you to write Op-Eds to this end. Set your PhD and Masters students on this. Child centricity is the key. So we have a largely supply side driven primary response that needs to be pushed. Una be agenda pushers naa! We need strong compulsive stories, powerful narratives with all the spin, frame, fact based emotional appeal and advocacy inducement that you can garner and fire.
Next is to call attention to the need for care and attention for adult beggars in the short and medium terms. Remember the SDGs, remember leave no one behind, remember inclusivity! What are the response options? Suggest some – adapted skills training, work for food, public work schemes, social safety net programmes, minimal functional literacy. Dig into your ideas brainstorm! Let us throw out the ideas. Let them say that the ideas are not workable. Unless the beggars are equipped to gain a living in other ways , they will be back on the street and the children with them. Politicians pronounce, policy makers and civil servants pounce to implement without adequate reflection save for considerations of pecuniary gains (prebandalism at its best) and the result is pain and waste. Let us save our country from waste for the sake of our children.
Noel Ihebuzor
Reflections 