On Friday, September 16, 2022, the Group One of AUN Community Service students comprising about 60 Fall 2022 Semester enrollees, went out to teach Feed-and-Read pupils a basic step-by-step approach to clean living and improving their health status. The group of male and female student volunteers from various schools took off from the Arts and Sciences Building to the venues of the program. While the male students headed to the Park, which hosts the Feed-and-Read boys, the female students headed for North Campus, which hosts the girls.
The pupils could not hide their excitement interacting with their newest friends, as indicated in their broad welcoming smiles and friendly play. They were instructed on how to wash their faces and brush their teeth when they wake up every morning, how to bathe and comb or brush their hair after bathing, and how to wash their hands after eating with bare hands and after using the toilet. For effective communication, the AUN student facilitators were paired in twos: Hausa and English speakers, to ease and deepen the teaching and learning experience.
The students who taught the subjects with enthusiasm admitted that the Feed-and-Read pupils deserve the right to basic and rightful education despite the socioeconomic challenges they face. Computer Science major, David Ononiwu, is one of them. "Let us put aside the formal teaching and learning, these pupils need to be shown love and a more practical way of hygienic living, and this should include providing them with some toiletries."
Law major Aisha Kamaluddeen, and CMD major Aisha Ahmed Aliyu, expressed their surprise at the pupils' ability to read fluently and understand the meanings of the words that form the sentences in the textbook, attributing it to the prudence of the pupils' permanent facilitator, Ms. Blessing Pue, who must have done a great job on the children.
One of the permanent facilitators, Mr. Isa Inuwa, expressed satisfaction with the passion and commitment AUN students show during community service. "The pupils are very pleased to have AUN students identify with them; this alone is a huge inspiration."
Reported by Abah John