Nasarawa State AGILE Validates GBV Service Providers

The Nasarawa State Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) organised a two-day workshop on validation and harmonisation of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) service providers across the state and AGILE school GBV focal persons to strengthen its effort in addressing all forms of gender-based violence across AGILE schools across the state.

AGILE Project is a World Bank funded project by the Federal Ministry of Education to assist and support the government’s long term education reform agenda to adequately address the identified constraints of accessing and completing secondary education facing adolescent girls in Nigeria

In her opening remarks, the state project coordinator of AGILE, Nasarawa Aishatu Aliyu Isoga, represented by the deputy project coordinator, Mrs Julianna Polycarp, stated that the Governor Abdullahi Sule-led administration is passionate about issues related to the protection and development of the girl child.

“GBV is a global issue that occurs in virtually all sectors of human interaction, in our various homes and workplaces, in our communities, and most especially in our schools. That is why the World Bank, through the AGILE project, has made GBV an integral component of its project implementation to see how best to handle cases in line with international best practices and mitigate its effects on our communities.

“The selection of Nasarawa State as part of the AGILE project is based on the high number of out-of-school children, especially adolescent girls. We have gone far in implementing all the relevant components, with plans to build 30 new schools across the state for both adolescent boys and girls. The project will employ over 1,000 teachers, who will also be deployed across the schools,” she stated.

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Lead Facilitator, Ms. Elsie IHUNDE, GBV Expert, during her presentation, stated that gender-based violence is not an unfamiliar subject to the AGILE project. The Project has proposed several construction and rehabilitation works and these activities resulted in labor influx of workers into the project sites and host communities which can exacerbate existing or create new GBV risks. These predispose women and girls to the risk of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), Sexual Harassment (SH), violence within school premises between adolescent girls and teachers, bullying among fellow students and other social issues.

She added that the training is designed to empower focal persons to prevent and respond to the needs of GBV survivors and strengthen capacity in basic life support. The Ambulance Academy will facilitate the Training.

In her goodwill message, the GBV officer of the state project implementation unit, Hajiya Fatima Mohammed, commended the workshop. She highlighted that more schools will be incorporated in the validation and harmonisation exercise to reduce cases of abuse and other issues related to gender-based violence in the various schools. The goal is to make Nasarawa State GBV-free.

The procurement officer, Aliyu Balarabe, and the State Project Implementation Unit members were in attendance. The event ended with the presentation of certificates to participants, who included stakeholders from the state ministries of education and women affairs, civil society organisations, law enforcement, livelihood, legal, health service providers, community leaders, and 280 focal persons across AGILE schools in Nasarawa State.