NGO, religious leaders partner to boost adolescent sexual reproductive health edu

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

An NGO, Hope for Communities and Children (HforCC) has collaborated with some religious leaders to hold outreaches in churches and mosques on promoting adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health(SRH) education.
The Chairperson, HforCC, Hajiya Hadiza Umar, asserted this at a two-day orientation and planning with religious leaders in Kaduna yesterday.
According to her, the partnership is in line with the objectives of the UNESCO 03 phase 2 program, which includes promoting the creation of safer, inclusive schools and Community environments with linkages to accessible SRH services.
She explained that as an organization that is strongly into safeguarding and more particular about social norms, they seek to support enabling environments for school health programs even during religious gatherings.
She also revealed that Kaduna State is already a signatory to a lot of reforms that seek to make schools safer for learners.
She said: “The state is working on an education law that if implemented, will prosecute parents or guardians for the absence of a child from school.
“We are going to support Kaduna State to scale up and strengthen the delivery of accurate, rights-based, gender transformative, and good quality teaching and learning on school violence prevention.
“This partnership will cause a reduction in new HIV infections, early and unintended pregnancies, gender-based violence, and child marriage and increased school completion rate at all levels.”
Hajiya Hadiza further explained that religious leaders are to support weekly SRH sermons in churches and mosques on agreed topics.
“These sermons will create an enabling environment and shifting of negative social norms and mobilize dropped-out girls to return to schools.
“This will also reduce gender-based violence, eliminate female genital mutilation, and increase support for parent-child communication”, she added.
Also speaking, the Chairperson of the Women Wing of Christian Association of Nigeria (WOWICAN) Kaduna State, Bishop Esther Yahweh applauded the partnership, describing it as a move in the right direction for the good of all.
She disclosed that WOWICAN had been in collaboration with the inter-faith for a long, working on several projects and programmes to better the lives of the people.
Yahweh opined that without Christianity or Islam, the lives of men and women cannot be the same because religion does a lot in the lives of mankind, to put people on the right path.
According to her: “It is a good move by this organization because what is happening right now in the world is so threatening that even the children from religious homes are no more on the right path.
“But with an NGO like this, helping to bring Religious leaders together, to sensitize them to go back to the church, the mosques to make sure their People understand what is going on in the world and also make the right choices.
“So I want to thank them for having a burden in a time like this when many have derailed from the right path and forgotten what right or wrong means.”
The Chairperson also encouraged leaders and elders in churches and mosques in communities to engage the youths and the young ones in security and health education talks so that they can protect themselves and the society at large.