Nasarawa AGILE validates GBV service providers

The Nasarawa state Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) organised a 2-day workshop on validation and harmonization of Gender Based Violence (GBV) service providers across the state and AGILE schools GBV focal persons to strengthen its effort in addressing all forms of gender based violence across AGILE Schools across the state. AGILE Project […]

The Nasarawa state Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) organised a 2-day workshop on validation and harmonization of Gender Based Violence (GBV) service providers across the state and AGILE schools GBV focal persons to strengthen its effort in addressing all forms of gender based violence across AGILE Schools across the state.

AGILE Project is a World Bank funded project by the Federal Ministry of Education to assist  and support 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 remarks, the state project coordinator of AGILE Nassarawa Aishatu Aliyu Isoga, represented by the Deputy project coordinator, Mrs Julianna Polycarp stated that Governor  Abdullahi Sule led administration is passionate about issues related to the protection and development of the girl child. GBV is a global issue and it occurs in virtually all sectors of human interaction, in our various homes, work places, in our communities and most especially in our schools, that is why the world bank through AGILE project has made GBV an integral component of its project implementation to see how best to handle cases in line with international best practice and  mitigate its effect on our communities.

Selection of Nasarawa state as part of AGILE project is informed by the high number of out of school children, especially adolescent girls, and we have gone far in implementing all the relevant components with plans of building 30 new schools across the state for both adolescent boys and girls, the project will employ over 1000 teachers who will also be deployed across the schools she stated.

Lead Facilitator, Ms. Elsie IHUNDE, GBV Expert, during her presentation, stated that gender based violence is not an unfamiliar subject to the AGILE project. The Project has proposed several construction and rehabilitation works and these activities resulted in labor 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.

The training is 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 Ambulance Academy, she added.

In her goodwill message, the GBV officer of the state project implementation unit, Hajia Fatima Mohammed commended the workshop highlighting that, more schools will be incorporated in the validation and harmonization exercise to reduce cases of abuse and other issues related to Gender based Violence in the various schools, the goal is to make Nasarawa state GBV Free.

In attendance was the procurement officer, Aliyu Balarabe, members of the State project implementation unit and ended with the presentation of certificates to participants, which  included stakeholders from state ministries of education and ministry of women affairs, civil society organizations, law enforcement and livelihood, legal, health service providers, community leaders and 280 focal persons across AGILE schools in Nasarawa State.