There are many people in our country who fail to see the importance of education. This was the first thing I learnt working with Bethesda Child Support Agency. Bethesda is non-profit organisation which focusses on providing basic education to less-privileged children for FREE. Free is the key word we tell the parents of these less-privileged children, pointing out the fact that they have nothing to lose by letting their children take a stroll to school in the mornings and come back with a wealth of knowledge in the afternoons and even a full stomach from time to time as Sponsors and Partners usually did stop by the school on occasion to drop a few treats. You would expect such a parent to be happy and be like “just tell us where!” and most of the time, you would be right but you’ll also be surprised by how many times it’s the opposite. The notion that as a child no one had your best interest at heart as much as your parent was one I was a firm believer of, but getting to meet the parents of some of the Bethesda children who themselves had not benefitted from a good formal education, I began to understand the notion was no good. According to The United Nations, Nigeria will by 2018 overtake India as the poorest country in the world. You might begin to wonder what this statement has to do with what I have been writing about for a while…give me a minute. You will agree with me that the best economies around the world are firm believers of the importance of good quality education. Countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, China, America and others provide extremely cheap or basically free education for their citizens and Nigeria used to do the same a while back. But we have since stopped, the price of education has been on the rise every year and our economy a steady decline. What now would you say is the difference between us and the parent of a less-privileged child who doesn’t want their child going to school? We should know the value of education, after all we benefitted from being educated. It’s not too late to make a change though, you can start by ensuring Bethesda keeps over 400 children in school by joining her Adopt-A-School campaign and helping us raise funds. You can donate here http://www.bethesdaagency.org/donate-2/