Empowerment
By Flora Okorie and Vivian Ihechu
Lagos, Sept. 26, 2018 (NAN) The Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF) says it is empowering girl-child to ensure she is able to carry the socio-economic burden of family which largely depends on her.
“We train the girl-child in such a way that we are already preparing them for their roles as mother, leader at community level and even at the national level,’’ Iwalola Akin-Jimoh told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Akin-Jimoh, the Executive Secretary of YEF, spoke to NAN during a GOAL Event 2018 on Wednesday in Lagos.
NAN reports that the GOAL project is a girl empowerment project by YEF supported by Standard Chartered Bank.
Nigeria is one of about 15 countries running the programme which focusses on the need to be healthy, empowered, generate income and manage finances through financial literacy programme, as well as life skills.
The intervention has been on since 2010 and focusses on every aspect of a child’s life.
According to her, a woman is closest to the child from the womb.
“So, if you train a woman or a girl properly, the person is in a better position to raise children that are well behaved and their capacity well built.
“If you train a girl and a woman, you are basically training the nation because her role is not only child bearing, but also in terms of leadership in Nigeria.
“So, access to education and information is important; if she appreciates and knows the strength of education, then, she is more likely to raise her children properly.
“Nigeria’s population is about 49 per cent women and 51 per cent men and if you want economic empowerment or development in the country, we have to take that 49 per cent along.
“Otherwise, the pressure of the development will fall heavily on the men.
“Also, it is important to start early with girls because when they are in primary and secondary schools, they may be misled, especially when it comes to issues on sexual behaviours.
“If they are not properly guided, it is the girls that get pregnant and bear the consequences including complications that could accompany pregnancy, abortion, stigmatisation, school-drop out, depression and even suicide,’’ she said.
Akin-Jimoh said that some of the challenges a girl-child faces include sexual abuse, lack of access to WASH facilities, especially during menstruation, not being given equal opportunities and lack of adequate information on her sexuality.
She said a girl-child needs information, as well as opportunity to recreation and creativity.
On the GOAL project, she said that the foundation had put pregnant girls chased out of their homes and those who have been abused in shelter.
According to her, we are also handling different types of abuse cases in courts.
“Annually, the foundation distributes information to 10,000 girls on several basis, where they are told about their rights, go through financial settlement; we also let them know that their lives come with responsibilities.
“We take them through a session where we empower, talk to them very early in life about facts that as a woman; we have leadership roles to play, not only at homes, community level, but also at national level.
“It is important for them to understand some of these roles because economic empowerment and development of Nigeria also rest on women.
“Currently, we are working with 15 schools in Lagos, 16 schools in Abuja and 10 schools in Ibadan.
“In addition, we now work with boys because we understand the fact that we cannot take the girls without taking the boys along.
“This is because in any community we have leaders mostly men and so if they push the agenda of women, one is likely to have a better result,’’ Akin-Jimoh told NAN. (NAN)
FLOK/VIV/GOK
Edited by Vivian Ihechu/Olagoke Olatoye