ACTIONAID trained Women Peer-Education Facilitators in Kogi on Tuesday said their interventions had covered gender gaps and addressed harmful traditional practices on widows, the girl-child and education in 12 communities.

The facilitators made the disclosure on Tuesday in Lokoja at the Bi-annual meeting of the facilitators organised by ActionAid.
The meeting is in collaboration with Participation Initiative for Behavioural Change in Development (PIBCID), a Kogi-based NGO and ActionAid local rights partner.

The women noted that the programme had made positive impact on their communities especially, women, through step-down of the trainings received.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the programme is aimed at building the capacity of facilitators to respond to obvious gaps and needs of women at community levels.

It is also to mobilise/organise women around issues that affect their political, social and economical development.

Mrs Enemi Alih from Ofuloko said her cycle (group) had succeeded in reducing widows’ burdens by addressing some of the unwholesome traditional practices which the widows were hitherto subjected to.

“Prior to the intervention, they were subjected to six-month mourning period, in addition to paying some levies before regaining their freedom,” she said.

She also said that while the solitary confinement had been abolished, efforts were being made to reduce the period.

Mrs One Awa from Ugbedemagwu lauded ActionAid for introducing the peer education which she noted had promoted good parenting and enhanced the girl-child enrolment in schools in her community.

Mrs Faith Mattaga from Osisi, said through her cycle (group) sensitisation, some couples in her community had embraced child-spacing.

Contributing, Hajia Hajaratu Momoh from Osara I, said through the programme, women in her area had realised how to maintain moderate weight.

She said they had also imbibed the culture of resting after work, to re-energise and ensure virtues of good neighbourliness for peace and development.

Mrs Hajara Adamu, ActionAid Advisor on Partnership and Local Rights Programmes, in her remarks, said the essence of the meeting was also to review the facilitators’ activities in their respective communities.

She said that ActionAid was working in excluded communities, against injustice and to reduce poverty.

Adamu stressed that the women peer facilitators comprised organised women of like-minds who were out to better the lot of the womenfolk.

Mrs Gift Owonipa, ActionAid Programme Manager in the state and Executive Director of PIBCID, in her overview of the women peer education programme, said it commenced operation in Nigeria in 2012.

She said that the training was organised to refresh the experience of the facilitators from seven communities in Kogi selected for the programme in September 2017.

Owonipa also said that aside from responding to gaps and needs of women, it was also aimed to create a society that placed equal value on all, irrespective of gender.

Belikisu Yakubu, Vice-Chairman, People Living with Disabilities, Kogi chapter, said some opportunists had previously used people with disabilities to make money for themselves “but today, through peer education, we make money for ourselves.”

The facilitators were drawn from Ofuloko, Ugbedemagwu, Ujagba and Okpakpata communities in Igalamela-Odolu as well as Osisi, Osara I and Osaragada communities in Adavi Local Government Areas of the state. (NAN)

– Jun. 19, 2018 @ 15:15 GMT |