Beneficiaries laud UNICEF Girl for Girl initiative

Young girls in Danbatta Local Government Area of Kano State have hailed the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) for introducing the Girls for Girls (G4G) initiative.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on June 15, 2017, the UNICEF in partnership with Nigeria’s education ministry, launched the G4G initiative, which empowers girls with information and knowledge to help build their capacity to stand up for themselves aimed at creating equal opportunities for girls to access education.

Some of the school girls who took part in training by UNICEF, on Monday, said the initiative has inspired them to aspire for key professions.

Speaking to a NAN correspondent, Miss Aisha Abdullahi, said that she learnt a lot about the management of menstrual hygiene.

”I want to be a medical doctor. I developed an interest in teaching people about their health and how to take care of themselves when they are ill.

‘The initiative has inspired me to aspire to become what I want to become”, she said.

Another student of the school, Amina Usman, 15, said she used to skip school during her menstrual periods.

”With this initiative and training, I have learnt to manage my menstrual periods in school with the help of our teacher who trained us on how to handle things.

”We have gained knowledge on self-esteem, self-confidence, etiquette and relating with male teachers and students,” she said.

Usman said she wants to be a nurse to assist people in times of need and to groom her younger sisters on health-related issues.

Contributing, a female teacher in the school, Mrs Hauwa Babale, said the initiative had developed her capacity to teach the girls general hygiene.

“The initiative came as a saving grace for our girls and to us the teachers because the training broke the silence.

“We got a school grant from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK. The girls were provided with kits.

“The kits are solely for the management of menstrual hygiene while the girls were in school,’’ she said.

Mr Muntaka Muktar, the Education Officer at UNICEF Kano Field Office, said that about 795 girls groups were established in 265 Junior Secondary schools across the 34 local governments in six states.

“About 12,566 adolescent girls from 265 focus junior schools acquired skills on menstrual hygiene under the initiative,” he said

He explained that about 9,200 adolescent girls received menstrual hygiene management kits in the focus schools across the six states.

The Director of Research and Statistics of the Kano State Ministry of Education, Mr Munzali Mustapha, also confirmed that about 300 primary schools benefitted from the intervention across six local governments.

Mustapha confirmed that about 420 Islamic and Qur’anic schools for girls in the state, benefitted from the intervention.

NAN reports that the G4G initiative is a component of the Girls’ Education Project Phase III being implemented in northern Nigeria via collaboration between UNICEF Nigeria and the Federal Government of Nigeria with funding from the United Kingdom (UK) Department of International Development (DFID).

The phase of the Girls Education Project seeks to help put 1 million girls in school, support them to remain in school and improve their learning achievement.

The focus states have the highest number of girls who do not attend school in Nigeria.

The project is funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK.

The project implemented by UNICEF was implemented in 2012 in Niger, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Bauchi and later Kano in 2018.

The objective of the project was to improve the social and economic opportunities for girls in the six states to complete basic education and acquire skills for life and livelihood.