From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
The Team Lead, Hope for Communities and Children, Hajiya Hadiza Umar, has said her organization, with support from UNESCO, is putting machinery in motion to ensure that Kaduna students enjoy a secure learning environment.
She asserted this in an interview at the ongoing 2-Day Training of Trainers workshop held in Kaduna yesterday.
Hajiya Umar said because of this, about 1,011 teachers will be trained across the state to give health talks in various schools, which is in line with UNESCO Education, Health and Wellbeing, which is similar to Family Life and Health Education.
According to her, a lot of things are happening in the education space, especially among adolescents, and this includes negative peer pressure, sexual harassment, or picking up bad habits.
She opined that the program would enable the adolescents to appreciate life and know all the necessary information so that they can stay safe, protect themselves, recognize when there’s danger, and be able to avert it or talk about it to safe Adults who can help them.
According to her: “We realized that there are incidents of children with unwanted pregnancies; some are dropping out of school due to drugs or harassment or no reason at all.
“We need them to be empowered about how to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, and also know about their reproductive rights so they can know the right thing to say, do, or the right people to meet.
“Also, to appreciate relationships within the home like parent-child relationships, healthy relationships with their peers, and healthy teacher-pupil relationships in the school so that they can enjoy learning, build their self-esteem, and report negative cases.
“We will train the teachers and they are going to train other learners in school and we are going to have discussions with Ward Development Committee on Health, Primary Healthcare Development Centres, and School Based Management Committee Health.
“Also talk with religious leaders and other stakeholders who can help us reach out to parents and the larger society so they can support children to stay safe and live a healthy lifestyle.”
In her remarks, the Desk Officer Family Life and HIV Education(FLHE) /Education Health and Wellbeing EHW at the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board Asma’u Idris Lere disclosed that the main objective of this is to increase the capacity of the learners in the school to create awareness on reproductive health for the pupils on how to take care of themselves physically, mentally and socially.
According to her, Family Life and HIV Education which is popularly known as Education Health and Wellbeing is about reproductive health and a method through which teachers in school can be train
She adds: “So, we want to use this training platform to reduce issues around gender-based violence, bullying, HIV AIDS, harmful traditional practices, and other issues that are a big challenge to us in various communities and, by implication, Kaduna State.”
Similarly, Hajiya Habiba Nasiru from Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria Education (PLANE) Said her organization has been working together with the State Government to see how they can put simple mechanisms in place for schools to be able to ensure that children are safe and protected and are learning in school.
“One of the things we have done is support schools by putting a system in place where people can report cases.
“When something happens to a child in school in terms of bullying, rape, sexual exploitation, or abuse, how can they report it.
“So there’s a system that is supported by the State where, when something happens to you, we have a designated safeguarding or focal person in the school you can report to.
“We have also supported schools to train teachers and head teachers on some of the ways they can handle these cases.
“We have also supported schools to collaborate with Primary Healthcare Centres in their communities to ensure they have plans put in place to carry out some of these safety talks for children, so they can feel safe in schools.
“One of the lessons to learn is that safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility, from them to the teachers that will be trained, and how it affects the children they will interact with.
“I would also want everyone to become aware that these abuses are happening in schools in ways we don’t want to imagine.
“It is unfair to send your child to school, and then they encounter rape or sexual exploitation or abuses, and these are things that are happening both in schools and the communities.
“They should know that it is not just for them to teach, but for them to impact the teachers that they are teaching with this knowledge and how it trickles down to help the communities and the children these teachers are teaching.”
A Consultants for the training, Mr Oluwaseun Bamidele said the goal of the training is at the end of the 2 days, the capacity of teachers should have been developed to effectively deliver quality education for health and well-being in schools.
He explained that the objectives of the training include training the teachers on the effective use of assembly talks to convey accurate information on FLHE/Education for Health and Wellbeing, to effectively deliver curricular-based FLHE/EHW to learners, to link students requiring support to referral and service delivery points and to strengthen the capacity of teachers to report of FLHE based activities in school.
