Over 280 focal persons have been trained to detect, prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) in the state by the Nasarawa State Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE).
It was a 2-day workshop designed to empower focal persons on how to prevent and respond to the needs of survivors of GBV and strengthen capacity in basic life support which will be facilitated by the ambulance academy.
A World Bank (WB), AGILE is a funded project by the Federal Ministry of Education to assist and support the government’s long term education reform agenda to adequately address the identified constraints of accessing and completion of secondary education facing adolescent girls in Nigeria.
In her opening remark, the State Project Coordinator of AGILE Nasarawa, Aishatu Aliyu Isoga, represented by the Deputy Project Coordinator, Mrs Julianna Polycarp, stated that Governor Abdullahi Sule-led administration is passionate about protection and development of the girl child.
She said GBV is a global issue which occurs in all sectors “in our various homes, work places, in our communities and most especially in our schools,” which is why the WB through AGILE project has made it an integral component of its project implementation in6 order to mitigate its effect on our communities.
The Truth learnt that selection of the state as part of AGILE project is informed by the high number of out-of-school children among adolescent girls.
She said AGILE plans to build “30 new schools across the state for adolescent boys and girls” and employ “over 1000 teachers who will also be deployed across the schools.”
Also speaking, the lead facilitator, Ms. Elsie Ihunde, a GBV expert, stated that gender-based violence is not an unfamiliar subject to the AGILE project.
According to her, “The Project has proposed several construction and rehabilitation works and these activities resulted in labour influx of workers into the project sites and host communities which can exacerbate existing or create new GBV risks.
“These predisposes women and girls to risk of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), Sexual Harassment (SH), violence within school premises between adolescent girls and teachers, bullying among fellow students and other social issues,” she said.
The GBV officer of the state project implementation unit, Hajia Fatima Mohammed, commended the workshop highlighting that more schools would be incorporated in the validation and harmonisation exercise to reduce cases of abuse and other issues related to GBV to make Nasarawa state GBV Free.
At the ceremony, basic life support was facilitated by Stanley Igyuh of the Ambulance Academy, Abuja.
There was a presentation of certificates to participants, which included stakeholders from state ministries of education, women affairs, civil society organisations, law enforcement and livelihood, legal, health service providers, community leaders and 280 focal persons across AGILE schools in the state.
