BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
A Non-Governmental Organisation, Sustainable Impact and Development Initiative for Adolescent and Youth (SID Initiative) has trained and empowered some adolescent girls on how to use locally sourced Ankara fabrics to make ornaments.
This empowerment programme was part of the Girls’ Corner Project launched by the NGO to help girls in two marginalised communities access sexuality education and be free from the prevalent transactional sex in their areas.
According to Blessing Ashi, Program Manager at SID Initiative, the sexuality education was carried out in a non-judgmental and stigma-free environment.
Ashi said that SID designed a safe space program for 100 girls in low-income communities of Ebute Ilaje and Agege of Lagos State.
This project was necessitated by the low levels of knowledge on sexual and reproductive health and limited access to and use of SRH services and contraceptives among adolescents and youths in Nigeria.
The project, according to Ashi, was sponsored by GAD Studio and ShareYourself and implemented in three weeks in the two communities simultaneously with the following thematic areas in focus: sexuality education, menstrual hygiene management, skill acquisition, music and arts.
The Program Manager who was a safe space facilitator, while speaking at one of the classes, noted that safe spaces were important for young people, especially girls, because it helped them learn in spaces free of judgement and discrimination.
She said most girls involved in transactional sex because they lacked economic empowerment, adding that there was a need for girls to be financially independent in order to be free from sexual violence.
She added that “ample and appropriate information on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) including HIV/AIDS and GBV is pivotal to helping girls live healthily and stay productive.”
One of the beneficiaries of the project, Tomi, aged 17 (not real name) who lives in Agege, while narrating her experience to one of the facilitators of SID Initiative, revealed how she gave birth when she was 14.
Tomi regretted not having a safe space or youth-friendly centre where she would have obtained a life-saving information on safe sex methods.
Ashi noted that Tomi had to drop out of school and now volunteers with the young mum’s club in Agege. “Tomi’s story is not uncommon in our society and this is one of the driving forces for SID’s interventions,” Ashi opined.
Also speaking at one of the centres was Remilekun, a safe space volunteer who explained that the integration of economic empowerment into safe space programs was an innovative way of improving the health and wellbeing of girls.
According to her, when girls are financially independent, they can support their families and this reduces the prevalence of transactional sex, and in some cases, sexual violence.
To achieve what Remilekun disclosed, SID Initiative invited a girl-child advocate and entrepreneur, Anita Graham, who taught the beneficiaries how to use locally sourced fabrics like Ankara to make accessories such as bangles, earrings, hair bands, and belts.
The Girls’ Corner project rounded off with graduation ceremonies in the two locations where beneficiaries leveraged on music and art to illustrate lessons learned and knowledge gained from the safe space classes.
The sexuality education modules focused on Values, Self-Esteem, Goal-Setting, Assertiveness, Finding Help, Relationships, Gender, Sexual Abuse, Reproductive Anatomy and Physiology, Sexually Transmitted Infections including HIV/AIDS, and Family Planning. As a contribution to ending period poverty and improving awareness on Menstrual Hygiene, Management Rjay Initiative in partnership with SID, distributed sanitary pads to the beneficiaries.
