Schools in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, that have embraced the “Cultural Clubs” initiative of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), have started reaping the benefits.

A student of the NICO Cultural Club in Junior Secondary School, Jikwoyi – Abuja, is the first beneficiary as the Institute recently donated half a million naira cash to sponsor the participation of one student in this year’s International Children Cultural Festival of Arts, holding in Ukraine, by July 2011.

Receiving the donation from Mr. Segun Adegbaju of the Orientation & Cultural Affairs Department, the Principal of the School, Mr. Abubakar Saidu Garba, thanked the Executive Secretary, Dr. Barclays Foubiri Ayakoroma, for fostering a sense of cultural awareness and identity in our youths, in order for them to appreciate and experience our cultural diversity.

He urged heads of other parastatals in the Arts, Culture and Tourism sub-sector to emulate the NICO boss’s creative approach and gesture.

By this development, Dr. Ayakoroma has matched words with action. He had at different fora stated that the Cultural Clubs are to help inculcate cultural values in Nigerian youths, believing that they will hardly deviate from habits formed through such early cultural orientation activities when they get older.

The NICO Cultural Clubs initiative was actualised with its inaugurated in 2010. It is a platform to “catch them young” in Schools to start their moral re-engineering early in the nation’s youths. It is the belief that through proactive concepts like this, Nigeria’s music, dress, cuisine and other healthy ways of life would be imparted on the Nigerian Child.

More than ten (10) Secondary Schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), including Abuja were covered in the first phase of the exercise. The second phase is the launching of the Cultural Clubs in the various zones.

In a related development, the Principal of Junior Secondary School, Gwarimpa Estate, Abuja, Mrs. Esther G. Jatau, has expressed sincere appreciation to NICO for attending their Cultural Day activities and supporting the School by donating NICO-branded Exercise Books.

This was contained in a Letter of Appreciation to NICO dated June 9, 2011, the day the school organised their cultural day celebration tagged, “Culture for Development and Unity”.

Gillowei James (Snr)
Media Asst. to the ES