IWD: MMAWT harps on improving mental health among women

By Stanley Onyekwere

As the world marked this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD), a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), Mairo Maryam Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (MMAWT) Legacy Initiative has called for strategic actions that will mitigate mental illness and other issues affecting women and girls.
In particular, the NGO urged stakeholders to pay much attention
to the surge in cases of mental illness, depression and trauma among women, girls and other victims of these vices.
Making this point, Founder of the Initiative, Hajya Mairo Maryam Tambuwal, said paying attention to mental illness, depression and different forms of trauma is a crucial part of their recovery from the prevailing challenges facing Nigerian women and girl child.
Haj. Tambuwal, in her address to mark the IWD, attributed the development to the harsh realities that the global pandemic and current spate of insecurity meted out on women and girls in communities especially in the Nigeria’s north.
She however noted that, the United Nations theme for 2021, ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a Post-Covid World’, saying that the global campaign theme #ChooseToChallenge are all indications that every one have a role to play in creating a better environment for women and girls to thrive.
The MMAWT founder, who is Wife of Sokoto State Governor said as part of her campaign to mark the International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month March, the Initiative has launched series of advocacy efforts to stakeholders to appeal for support to women, girls and children.
According to her: “While the rest of the world is slowly recovering from the devastation of the pandemic, we in the North are grappling with a lot of vices, ranging from incessant kidnap of school children, with girls often being the target to communities loosing their source of livelihoods because they do not have access to their farms.