Teens and Youth Educational and Capacity Enhancement (TYECE) has called on the federal and state governments to provide structures to support orphans, vulnerable children and commercial sex workers.

The Executive Director of TYECE, Mrs Benny Aipoh, said that improving the situation of the underprivileged demanded more responsibility from the government and other stake holders.

Aipoh told newsmen in Auchi, Edo, that Nigeria had more than eight million less privileged children, and that the affluent were not doing anything to change their situation.

She said that with donations from USAID Nigeria and USAID Washington, her NGO had sent more than 2, 000 children to school, empowered 420 commercial sex workers and some 700 widows.

The TYECE executive director said that the projects, which were executed within the last three years, covered few communities in Etsako West and Etsako East local government areas of Edo .

She noted that with more effort from other NGOs, government and other stakeholders, more could be achieved.

Aipoh said, “Government has been helpful, but there is need for government to do more.

“Government should come up with the idea of private public partnership. This will go a long way in removing these people from the streets.

“We do not have much money in doing what we are doing. What we do is to leverage resources.

“We will certainly do more if we get more resources from our donors that have been very helpful all these years.”

Shading more light on the training of orphans and vulnerable children, Aipoh said what her NGO provided educational support in schools where the children were enrolled.

“So far, we have trained more than 2, 000 of them at the community level. What we do is to identify the children, and we engage teachers from the community to teach them privately.

“We then assist the children to be integrated into normal school. In these schools, we enter into what we called block agreement scheme.

“What this means is that the children do not pay school fees or any other fee for that matter. We pay these schools indirectly by assisting them in their areas of need.

“We build of classrooms for them, library, provide chairs and desks and lots more.

“We are happy with what we are doing, changing their situation and with more collaboration from stakeholders, a better deal would be provided for this people.’’