By. Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti
Ekiti State Commissioner for Education, Dr Olabimpe Aderiye has reiterated the commitment of the State government to the safe space schools initiative.
She stated this on Friday in Ado-Ekiti at the one day Workshop on Technical Support for the Facilitation of Safe Spaces in Secondary Schools in Ekiti State facilitated by New Initiative for Social Development, NISD, with the support of Ekiti State Adolescent Girls Initiative For Learning And Empowerment, AGILE, Project.
The Education Commissioner emphasized that the State government is ensuring that all secondary schools in the State are safe for the students to navigate their adulthood.
She said: “We keep on emphasizing that everybody has a right to live. There is no chance going to school when the child is scared. A factor of dropping out of school is insecurity.
“The government is ensuring that our schools are safe, have perimeter fencing, gates and guards. We train them so that they can be able to navigate their adulthood and when they get to a place, they will understand their environment and know when the place is not safe.
“This stakeholders forum is to ensure that we scale up the things we have done in 101 schools. We are not leaving boys as well but the focus is on the sustainability of girls as they have a higher chance of getting sexually abused than boys.
This is why the focus is on girls but we are not leaving the boys. We know some boys are abused and the renovation is on all the schools where all the boys and girls are involved.”
According to the Project Coordinator of AGILE, Yewande Adesua, the stakeholders engagement is targeted at empowering the girls in Ekiti secondary schools with life skills that will guide them in their future endeavours.
She noted that the safe space session is carried out by guidance and counsellors, who relate with them as friends and educate them through the safe space curriculum that deals with reproductive health, among others.
Her words: “AGILE Project is supported by World Bank to improve existing infrastructures in secondary schools, promote social and behavioral change through communication, engagement with traditional rulers and advocacy. It also empower girls with physical life skills and knowledge and also providing digital literacy skills for girls.
“The stakeholders engagement is basically for empowering girls with critical life skills in our secondary schools so that they will be able to navigate adulthood.
“We had the first phase of this project in 101 schools where safe space session was provided for girls to meet with their mentors to bare their minds without been judged.”
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