By Stanley Onyekwere
A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Abiodun Essiet Initiative for Girls (AEIG) has taken advocacy against Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) to students of Government Secondary School Kawu District of Bwari Area Council, Abuja.
In particular, the NGO sensitised the students about SGBV and how to get help, and some were inducted as SGBV Ambassadors within the school, so as to break the culture of silence, as a way of curbing the increase in the menace in schools and communities.
Speaking on the sideline of the sensitisation seminar at the school yesterday, Executive Director of the NGO, Abiodun Essiet, said the school advocacy programme was initiated to ensure the reduction of SGBV cases and its prevalence especially in interior communities of FCT.
She noted that based its baseline study, it discovered that everyone is affected in one way or the other by the issue of SGBV, and bringing it down to schools is key to mitigating it.
According to her: “We felt it is a discussion that should happen within the school premises, which is a community where issue of SGBV also occur. The School community is a key critical point where we need to sensitise more people about the menace.
“We are engaging the students because SGBV also happen within boys and girls, so they are not left out of this menace, hence they should be exposed to the issue.
“We are going to six schools across the six Area Councils, and this is the first school in Kawu District of Bwari, and we will be going to five more schools in five other area councils.
“They are majorly schools that are located within the interior communities where there are predominately Abuja indigenous people.”
She called on the all relevant government agencies to keep sensitising our schools and raise save centres within the school premises, where our children can run to, and seek intervention.
Responding on behalf of the students, the Assistant Head Girl of the School, Ishiaku Blessing, said most of the things they told us about SGBV are happening in our school and community.
She added that as one of the Ambassadors of AEIG against the menace, she will be very active in reporting and calling out for action against the menace.
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