Accra, Feb. 23, GNA- Muslim Aid, a UK based international development organisation has within the past two years sank over one billion cedis to help boost the pursuit of education and facilitate the eradication of poverty in Northern Ghana.

The organisation committed the money through Northern Ghana Aid (NOGAID UK) for the donation of textbooks and a computer literacy development project.

Alhaji Abukari Yakubu, NOGAID Director of Projects who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday said the organisation spent seven million pounds last year in aid of the poor around the world regardless of race, greed, sex, or religion. He commended the organisation for the wonderful work it is doing around the world especially to Tsunami victims, Iraqi and Palestinian refugees and the poor in India.

Alhaji Yakubu said currently Muslim Aid is sponsoring the construction of two school blocks, comprising six classrooms, office, store, toilet and urinals each for the Monawara and Darul Islam English and Arabic schools in Tamale at the cost of 850 million cedis. He noted that formal education is the key to inject a sense of direction and purpose among the youth in the North and minimise factional conflicts in the area.

He said the under-development of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions and the related problems of unemployment was mainly due to the lack of education.

Alhaji Yakubu said his organisation was striving to reverse the yawning gap between Northerners and Southerners by contributing "its widows mite".

He said a survey carried out by NOGAID last year in Accra and Kumasi, revealed that majority of the "Kayayee" or the head potters on the streets of the two metropolis engaged in menial jobs were either school drop outs or stark illiterates.

He said most of the girls who claimed they were running away from early marriages and the abuse of their fundamental rights came from homes were education was not widespread. "Their parents have been trapped by the limitations of culture and religion to perpetuate these abuses because they are the by-products of years of illiteracy and ignorance."

He said although the provision of educational facilities was the responsibility of Government, the disparity between Northerners and Southerners in terms of quality education, called for serious efforts by non-governmental organisations to assist to reverse the situation. NOGAID he said was making strides towards the eradication of illiteracy, ignorance and marginalisation among the youth in the area who lacked access to education in the competitive world they found themselves.

He said his organisation had made a donation of clothing, stationeries, and school uniforms to poor and orphan pupils. Alhaji Yakubu called on development organisations to help resource the schools under construction to make them one of best in Tamale. He appealed to the beneficiary communities to value the investments NOGAID was making by enrolling their children to the schools when they are completed.