NGO Pledges to send prisoner’s kids to school
By Trek Africa Newspaper
A Lagos-based NGO, The Second Chance Care Foundation (TSCCF) has launched an initiative to send some indigent children whose parents are serving long jail terms to school. The initiative tagged Angel Scholarship seeks to provide educational support to these indigent kids. The Second Chance Care Foundation (TSCCF) has for a long time focused on advocacy on prison reforms, rehabilitation, and reintegration of ex-convicts. Some of their works include providing legal aid for people awaiting trials for non-violent crimes and those that are wrongly incarcerated. They also provide relief, empowerment, and support to families whose breadwinners are held behind bars.
According to the President of the organization; Mark Idiahi many families are thrown into circles of crime when their breadwinner is sent to jail and kids are forced to the streets to fend for themselves. He mentioned that one of the ways to tackle rapidly growing insecurity is to reduce the number of out-of-school children. Vulnerable children are susceptible to crimes, assaults, and suppressions. He also talked about the challenges people face when they return from jail.
we are committed to helping our communities deal with the increase in crime rate by addressing many of the root sources of the increased crime rate. Many individuals and families have been thrown into a cycle of crime, for instance, people who complete their jail terms or are released from prisons have no program that will systematically integrate them into the society. They face serious discrimination in getting jobs and housing.
This situation forces them back into crimes which return them to prison. Another category is children whose fathers or mothers are held behind bars. We focus mainly on children whose breadwinner (father or mother) is facing long jail term such as life in prison or sentenced to death). This set of children lacks support and often dropped out of school. They also face all sorts of prejudice and discrimination in most cases and are forced into committing crimes thereby continuing the crime circle. Many of the young boys and girls face exploitations, sexual assaults, and child labor. We are addressing this by providing support to keep these children in school through our Angel scholarship program.
According to Prison Insider (a global advocacy group), 70% of the inmates across Nigerian prisons are awaiting trials. Many of them might have not committed crimes, some might be there for non-violent crimes that shouldn’t require a prison sentence. When we look at these staggering statistics and the potential accumulative effect on our security, one will see the urgent need to contribute to justice and prison reforms.
TSCCF seeks to collaborate with partners, sponsors, donors, and volunteers for the angel scholarship program. They are looking for partners and collaborators that can adopt to send a child to school. If we empower these children with education, we would have cut them off the circle of crime and our societies and communities will be better for it.
We are inviting the general public to join our good efforts through financial donations or taking up sending a child to school.
www.tsccfoundation.com
