By Mariam Abeeb
The Minister of state for education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmed has emphasized the importance of investing in the education and empowerment of girls, as the architects of tomorrow’s Nigeria.
She said this during her opening remarks at the Re- launch of MADUBI campaign titled : Empowering Adolescent Girls through AGILE, held in Abuja.
She explained that the transformative movement is aimed at empowering Nigerian adolescent girls by addressing challenges in secondary education, including financial, infrastructural, and social cultural barriers.
She added that the project has made significant strides, improving school infrastructure, providing conditional cash transfers, and delivering life skills training.
“Let us make history by investing in the education and empowerment of our girls, the architects of tomorrow’s Nigeria.
“ When we empower you, Nigeria impact, we’ll do everything to support you, I would like to take a moment to thank our parties, especially the World Bank, for their unwavering support.
“ It is our resources have been instrumental in making a beacon of hope for millions of families to our stakeholders and implementing states. Your commitment to discuss inspires us everyday”, she noted .
She assured that government will continue to challenge the barriers that stand in the way of girls’ education and create a Nigeria where every girl can see a future full of promise, opportunity, and empowerment.
The minister encouraged girls to dream big and assures them of her commitment to empowering them for the betterment of society and Nigeria.
Prof Ahmed thanked the World Bank and other stakeholders for their unwavering support, which has been instrumental in making a beacon of hope for millions of families.
Similarly, the AGILE National Project Coordinator, Amina Haruna reiterated that the project is to improve secondary education opportunities among girls in targeted areas in the participating states.
She revealed that the project has increased enrolment, retention and completion over the three and a half years of implementation with 3.9 million girls in secondary schools.
She added that they have constructed and completed over 200 Junior and Senior Secondary Schools, renovated 8,800 WASH/toilet facilities with boreholes and solar facilities.
According to her , more than 460,949 furniture has been provided while 16,232 teachers has been recruited with 50% of these figures being female.
She added that 53,491 teaching and learning materials were also provided to schools for effective and efficient teaching and learning.
“Over one million girls have graduated from life skills and digital literacy acquisition trainings. Schools under AGILE intervention have developed entrepreneurial skills by setting up small scale businesses in fish ponds, livestock as part of climate change, generating income which we saw during our mission visit to Katsina and Borno states.
According to her , Madubi which means mirror in Hausa was crafted as a campaign dedicated to furthering our engagement and entrenching the positive norms related to sending girls to school as well as empowering them with life skills.
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