The Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF), an NGO, has continued the training of adolescent girls in over 40 public schools in Lagos, Ibadan and FCT project using life skills education and sports.
The Executive Secretary of YEF, Mrs Iwalola Akin-Jimoh, who disclosed this at a one-day stakeholders meeting in Abuja on Thursday, said the project was sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank as part of its corporate social responsibility.
Akin-Jimoh said that the project, which uses life skills education and sports to empower adolescent girls, had reached no fewer than 120,000 young women directly and through peer education as at December 2021.
She also said that the project focused on younger adolescent between 11-16 years with life skills, literacy, financial skills and sports skills to make them leaders in their endeavours.
According to her, the Standard Chartered Bank has supported the project for the past 12 years.
“We have gone to communities and so far installed 72 WASH points facilities for COVID-19, distributed 15,000 masks and 15,000 hand sanitisers for the prevention of COVID-19.
“The project, which is called the GOAL project, started in 2010 in Nigeria and its an international project that builds life skills for adolescent particularly in schools.
“A lot of investments have gone into the project. On an annual basis, an investment between 10 million to 15 million was invested annually. There is a need for this project because it builds the capacities of the girls to be leaders.
“We train them on issues around negotiations, time management, self esteem and all the seven life skills and we’ve been training them for more than 10 years.
“Apart from life skill training, we have sessions where we train them on financial literacy.
“And for those who have passed through the programme who have done excellently well, they now serve as champions to train other girls in schools,” Akin-Jimoh said.
She added that the advent of COVID-19 brought about challenges in reaching the students at school but said the challenge was surmounted as they were able to go to communities where the students reside to empower them.
Akin-Jimoh said that the capacities of the girls overtime were built to start their own businesses that would bring income for them and their families.
She identified COVID-19 as a major challenge which exposed the organisation to having a radio programme where the objectives of the project on life skills were mainstreamed to reach out to many girls.
According to her, most girls who had passed through the project have adopted schools and are now in tertiary institutions as some of them now work with out-of-school adolescent.
She called on government at all levels to adopt the project because it had made a lot of impact in all the selected schools.
Akin-Jimoh said: “It is important for us to know that we can make an impact for nothing in moving the country forward.
“A society is made up of human being and so when a society is corrupt, you cannot expect the children to be safe and so a lot of the things we see in children now is a manifestation of the taints in the adults.
“So, we cannot have perfect children when we have imperfect human beings.
“And so, it is important for government and parents to realise that the kind of children we have are manifestations of the type of human being we have.
“So, we need to understand that Nigeria is for all of us and it our role and responsibility to do good to move the country forward for full development of the country,” she said. (NAN)
