This project will provide 1,000 free new school uniforms to indigent pupils in public primary schools in Nigeria. Many were already out of school due to poverty and with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot more of this children can be expected to be absent from school when school eventually reopen. Project Purple Diamond has been providing free new school uniforms to indigent pupils of public primary schools in Nigeria since 2019.
In a country where primary education is free, yet a larger percentage of pupils from poor homes are still not going to school, simply because their parents cannot afford the basic things like backpack, sandals and school uniforms. To these parents, the challenge of feeding takes preeminence over the educational needs of their children. Thus, having their kids walk bare footed and clothed in tattered uniforms to school is of little concern to them.
By providing free new school uniforms, most of these children who would have stayed at home due to no school uniform will be able to go to school and access education. In some of the schools where we distributed school uniforms, the teachers allowed our beneficiaries to stay in school because we made a commitment to distribute free school uniform in the school to the indigent, imagine kids in other schools who would have been denied access to class because because they have no school uniform.
New school uniforms will not only allow them to stay in school and access education, it will also enhance their self-image. A child who goes to school in tattered school uniforms and see his or her fellow school mates in decent uniform will no doubt have a low self esteem of his/herself. At the development stage of their lives, they need a positive outlook of themselves to build confidence and grow into a responsible adult.
