Group promotes reading, debate clubs in schools
The Police Campaign Against Cultism and Other Vices (POCACOV), a police advocacy group, has expressed confidence that its new Reading/Debate Clubs in primary and post-primary schools will deepen reading consciousness among youths.
The National Coordinator of POCACOV, CSP Ebere Amaraizu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Wednesday that the reading and debate clubs were under “POCACOV in My School Programme”.
Amaraizu said the new clubs would effectively fill in the yawning gap of exposing youths to critical and strategic thinking and building confidence, which would make them thrive for a functional community and greater Nigeria.
According to him, the clubs will check negative digital and internet footprints and reorient them on societal standards, morals and discipline for a functional community.
He said: “The POCACOV Resource Centre, Enugu is developing a module of engagement on the activity, touching an aspect of sports and parenting which will also aid in effective parenting through adult guidance.
“Already, POCACOV has POCACOV Volunteer Clubs (PVC) in schools and this will help in partnership with Parents-Teachers-Associations to drive this to a logical conclusion.
“It is always necessary to engage their mindsets through lofty programmes built to expose them towards critical thinking, such programmes will take them to the pathways of positivism with positive coping skills.
“These coping skills will make it difficult for them to yield into peer pressures influences as well as other environmental and family pressures, thereby making it difficult to be recruited into Membership of Unlawful Societies and Organized Criminal Groups (OCGS).”
POCACOV programmes are designed to be social and community problem-solving activity under the Community Policing Framework of the Nigeria Police Force as captured in part X1V of the Nigeria Police Act 2020 for a safe and secured communities.
Its programmes are concentrated on cutting the supply chains and conveyor belts to cultism and vices through changing of mindsets of children and youths that all that glitter, in terms of temporal proceeds of crime, are not gold.
