Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF), a non- governmental organization (NGO) in partnership with Standard Charted Bank has empowered young girls in Secondary schools on Gender Base Violence among others issues.
The foundation, according to its Exective Secretary, Mrs Iwalola Akin-Jimoh, during the annual goal quiz competition held in Abuja, said the quiz competition brings together young girls who have benefited from live skills, financial literacy and empowerment project that is been implemented in Lagos, Ibadan and Abuja.
According to her, the project which has been ongoing has so far trained over 100,000 young girls and this year ,12,000 girls were reached, adding that they plan to reach 10 to 15,000 girls yearly.
She said the project which enjoins the Public Private Partnership (PPP) with Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport is holistic and talks about how girls can maintain self esteem, reproductive health component, menstruation, literacy amongst others .
She said the foundation also teaches girls about how to save money , manage money, how to budget adding that they also go for vocational training particularly during the holiday.
The ES further explained that the project is not only focused on girls as they have also started Goal boys project stating that there is a very strong component on gender base violence.
“We creates an awareness among girls and boys to know the importance of gender base violence and how they can take care of themselves. If they have been victims , what they can do and where they can report.
On how to monitor the girls after the training, the Program Manager, Adekemi Omole said they have a database where they have records of students, they follow up and they also have the contacts of their parents .
One of the beneficiaries of the project, Valerie Oyima from J. S. S Pyakasa said the training has made her know how to handle boys who comes to who woo her for a relationship.
She also said it has made her well behaved morally and how to save and spend money. “I have also been able to handle issues among my peers.”
The winning schools for the quiz competition
was the Junior Secondary School, Kubwa 2, who emerged the First position, Second position, Junior Secondary School, Mpape while the Junior Secondary School, Lifecamp emerged the Third Position.
The schools who took part in the Quiz competition was Junior Secondary School, Area One, Junior Secondary School, Area Eleven, Junior Secondary School, Dutse Sagwari, Junior Secondary School, Kubwa One
Junior Secondary School, Kubwa 2, Junior Secondary School, Nyanya
Others are Junior Secondary School, Mpape, Junior Secondary School, Pyakasa, Junior Secondary School, Durumi, Junior Secondary School, Life Camp.
