By; ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna.
As part of event to mark ‘World Day of the Girl child’, Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Kaduna, on Monday, led school children on a road walk to Kaduna state government house to seek for government collaboration for schools improvement in the state.
The CSOs were recieved by the wife of the governor, Hadiza El-rufai at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna.
The theme of this year’s event is “girls progress = goals progress, a global girl data movement”.
Presenting their purpose for the visit, Barbara Nimrok, told the wife of the governor that, what they need at this point is for the state to enact a special policy that will take care of the challenges being faced by the girl child.
She explained that most schools in the state do not have adequate facilities to carter for the girl child, adding “children today menstruate very early, and when they get to school they are not able to take care of themselves because the school does not have the facilities to meet their needs.
“So we are advocating that policies or supplies can be made just as it was done in the case of text books and other instructional materials for the girl child. We won’t mind if we have sanitary pads and towels kept in the schools in the event that a girl needs it at any point in time.
“Although, we have been able to reach out to various schools as individual organizations, and as coalition to meet the needs of both the girl child and the boy child, that’s not withstanding, we are making a clarion call with specifics on the girl child because we discovered that it is very easy to neglect the girl child because of the society she grows up.”
Responding to their demands, Hadiza El-rufai, commended their effort on education saying it is commensurate with her passion for the girl child and that the current administration is ready to do anything to raise the standard of the girl child in the society.
She noted that there have been a lot of challenges facing the girl child especially in the Northern part of the country, but that it is important to special focus to those that are disadvantaged in the society.
“When a girl child is educated, she knows how to take care of herself. So the girl child education is really important. I found out that the enrollment of both the girls and the boys is almost 50/50 but because of constraint faced by the girl child only few of them complete their education.
“Some drop out of school, some are married off early just because of lack of funding, once a family have an option to choose between a boy and girl which will go to school, more often than not, they choose the male child” she said.
Also speaking, coordinator of the coalition, Fornchor Paula, said their visit was an awareness creation to notify wife of the governor that if you give attention to the girl child education, it will help with early marriage education to reduce VVF, the issue of earlier birth raised between mother and child and the girl will be equipped and knows what to do at any point in time.
She thank the wife of the governor for granting them audience, adding that meeting her was a major step because issue of girl child is one of her priority.
