In cushioning the psychological effects of the Boko Haram insurgency, the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), has embarked on provision of psychosocial support to 50,000 school children in both primary and secondary schools in Borno State.
Speaking to newsmen on Friday in Maiduguri while, handing over a remodelled primary school to Borno State government, Phuong Nguyen, UNICEF chief of field Maiduguri office, said the impact of the psychosocial support on the school children is to have a generation of children who have skills, knowledge, who can grow up and develop for the nation
She noted that the impact is going to be in magnitude in the years to come.
She said UNICEF had already provided psychosocial support to the teachers, because teachers need psychosocial support for themselves, adding that when teachers are trained on how to detect emotional trauma on the type of anxiety that children had, due to conflict like insurgency, the school children will be healthy emotionally, physically and mentally.
In his remarks, Borno State governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, described the UNICEF gesture as a welcome development, saying that as government coupled with dwindling resources at hand, it cannot put in all the deficits especially, when it come in the area of education.