BASOVCA Chairperson lauds Gov Bala, says the agency has achieved tremendously under his government.

By Mohammed Kaka Misau

The Executive Chairperson, Bauchi state Orphans and Vulnerable Children Agency (BASOVCA), Hon Hassana Harkila Bogoro has commended Governor Bala Mohammed of the state for improving the lives of the poor and the vulnerable persons.

While thanking God for the achievements recorded by her agency, Harkila thanked Governor Bala Mohammed for giving her the opportunity to pilot the affairs of the agency.

“I appreciate God Almighty and I appreciate the Executive Governor of our dear state Bauchi for bestowing this trust on me by giving the mandate to take care of the OVC on behalf of the government”, she said.

According to her, the agency really did well last year, adding that a lot of progress was made in the out gone year unlike what was obtainable in the previous administration.

“When we came in we found out that they were operating within 7 thematic areas that include health, education psycho-social support, shelter, food and nutrition, child protection and household economic strengthening”, Hon Harkila said.

Hon Harkila who explained that she chaired the agency during the transition period been a member in the committee, said they were able to identify what need to be done to revamp the agency and made recommendations.

“When I was given the mandate to pilot the affairs of the agency, I sat down and looked at the recommendations we made. I didn’t know I was going to Chair the agency, the recommendations were made for any body that will be there as the Executive Chairman to put records straight”, she said.

The Executive Chairperson who acknowledged that there was little interventions in 7 thematic areas however, decried that such interventions by the past administration were nothing to ride home about.

“In the area of health you will just see about three or four people that were referred to Dalla in Kano or federal medical center Azare, the services were skeletal. In the area of education, they only managed to enrolled about three thousand out of school children into schools within four years”, she revealed.

On the issue of health intervention, Hon Harkila said only one vulnerable person from Alkaleri local government area was provided with shelter, adding that there was nothing to show in the areas of psychosocial support and that of food and nutrition.

Hon Harkila who noted that in the area of household strengthening only 87 children got trained for three and half months in Misau, explained that when she took over, she decided to take on the 7 thematic areas one after the other for positive impact.
The agency’s Chairperson said that the previous administration only managed to enroll about three thousand children into schools within its four years compared to over 2000 enrolled at the first year of Governor Bala Mohammed.

Going by the difference, Hon Harkila projected that in four years single tenure of Bala Mohammed, the agency will be enrolling about ten thousand children, adding that, “that will be about three or four times of what was obtainable before. I think that’s is going to be a great achievement”.

Harkila while stating that the agency has ensured the provision of food and nutrition to fight hunger and malnutrition among the OVCs, noted that Bauchi state is among the states that has the highest cases of malnutrition.

“We always ensure that food that contains enough nutrients are provided to our children at the OVC, we do it in such a way that when you compare these orphans with children of the rich, there will not be any difference at all, we make the orphans feel comfortable”, she pointed out.

Hon Harkila said the agency has always insured that food items are purchased and stored in bulk to avoid shortage unlike what it used to be in the past.

“We ensured that our store is not left dry so that if any vulnerable person that comes to the agency with complaint of lack of what to eat will have something to take home, we have about 33,600 volunteers across the 6,640 units of the state, so those people always keep us connected with their areas on what is obtainable there and before you know, we will send food items to relief the situation”, Harkila further said.

The Chairperson of BASOVCA who described the year 2020 as the, most terrible one for the people nationwide and even globally, said the agency buys varieties of food items such as rice, beans, semovita, millet and a whole lot of others to ensure that what it gives out is balanced diet.

She said the agency has in the area of shelter, provided house accommodation for many vulnerable persons, pay rents to relief them for the period of one or two years.

Speaking on household economic strengthening, Harkila said government has at inception in 2019, trained 150 people in various skills that include
tailoring, Knitting, Weaving, catering, beads making among others and equipped them with starter packs to enable them become self reliant.

“We also did another one in 2020 where about 200 women were empowered on various skills of tailoring, pomade making, catering amongst others where over N30 million apart from the about N17 million that was spent”, she explained.

According to her, “before this paradigm shift, there was empowerments actually, but it was used to be targeting only orphans on individual bases, but now we are targeting the entire households, that’s why the trainings are being carried out on and on”.

She said the trainings is targeted at the breadwinner or the caregiver of a household once it is realised that such person is responsible. “we train and give them starter packs so they can start their own businesses to help their families together with the orphan”.

Hon Harkila noted that the agency has in the area of health, sponsored the treatment of thousands of people by creating what she called ‘health ticket’ across the 20 LGAs, 323 wards and 6,640 units of the state so that orphans who needs medical attention will benefit from the program.

She said in that aspect alone, the governor has given the agency a standing approval of N5 million every month to cater for all the health tickets given to the orphans and their caregivers, adding that, thousands of persons have benefited.

According to her, the monitoring and evaluation team of the agency are going round the 20 local government areas of the state with a view to gathering data on the specific number of the beneficiaries in 2020 for documentation.