African Education Outreach Inc

African Education Outreach is a public nonprofit organization that seeks to create and maintain a quality, welcoming education K-12 campus in Nigeria with curricula relevant to the goals and aspirations of each student irrespective of faith, creed, tribe, ethnicity, or social status.

 THE VISION

 The visions and purposes of African Education Outreach (AEO) are: _

 To identify the educational needs of school children in Nigeria

1. To build, equip, recruit and staff new schools in Nigeria that meet the local standard and compete with international standards.
2. To identify local schools in African communities that are struggling and work with them to bring the schools to a standard that will compete nationally and internationally.

THE FIRST PROJECT OF AEO

 AEO’s first school project is in Abakaliki, a community in the South-east of Nigeria. In the town of Abakaliki, many school age children, boys and girls, are still found “hawking” on the streets, a result of poverty and the lack of educational opportunities.

Classroom block buildings constructed by the missionaries and the Nigerian government before and after the Nigerian civil war (1967-1970) remain dilapidated, often with blown off roofs.  Children are left to study under the shade of nearby trees. And where intact buildings exist, the classrooms usually are not equipped with desks for students or with tables and chairs for teachers.
Our vision, in the face of these challenges, is to provide education to students who desire it. Thus, AEO chose the Abakaliki region for the development and construction of our first school, because of the strong potential to improve educational opportunities for youth in and near Abakaliki, as well as youth in other areas of Nigeria.

Abakaliki, like most towns in Nigeria, is growing rapidly. It has a population of 192,000 and is projected to reach 290,000 by 2040.  By 2040, Ebonyi state is expected to increase from 2.5 million to a population of 4 million. In about 25 years, about 1.5 million youth in Ebonyi state alone will need education. This growth is also true of the neighboring Nigerian States; United Nations projects that Nigeria with a population of 177.5 million people will reach 300 million by 2040. This projected population growth underscores the urgent need to finance, build, and maintain additional schools for Nigerian youth.

 Without the existence of quality schools to take care of this growing population, families in Ebonyi State will continue to struggle to survive through subsistence agriculture, on soil that is hardly productive due to over use and abuse. There are youth on these farms today who cannot read or write, and live on the farms with their parents.They are unable to practice modern and mechanized farming because they lack the knowledge to do so. Without new educational opportunities, many of these youth will end up hawking on the streets to make a living, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

The school will prepare students to graduate with basic entrepreneurial, technical and vocational skills necessary for agricultural, commercial and economic development. Karis will prepare students to continue on to college and become trained in the applied sciences, technology, business, craft, and thus becoming economically self-reliant.