By Abubakar Baba Ahmad.
About 200 selected Adolescent Girls, Young Women and Girls with Disabilities GWDs in Bauchi metropolis are undergoing 6 months skills acquisition training in nine Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics STEAM courses under the STEAMinists Against Gender-based Violence GBV project.
Similarly, another 100 from Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa local governments have been selected for Science, Technology Engineering, Arts and Mathematics STEAM Awareness campaign.
STEAMinists Against GBV is a project being implemented by The Girl Child Values Support Initiative, and Supported by French Embassy Fund FEF.
The Senior Programmes Officer, Girl Child Values Support Initiative Mr Owa Oluwatosin Zuriel who stated this in an interview with Radio Nigeria shortly after a media tour by a group of journalists to one of the 5 training centres located within Bauchi metropolis.
Mr Owa Zuriel said the project aims to empower the 200 beneficiaries who are between the ages of 18 to 35 with life skills to protect themselves against Gender-based violence.
“”We’re basically training them for the future workforce, you know, that’s to come. We want them to be able to get skills that they will be able to get a remote job, and so far right now, the project has been a very, very huge success and we’re here, we can see that we have these ladies learning and being upscaled.
“About 10% of the beneficiaries of this project are persons with disabilities, girls with disabilities”, Mr Owa Zuriel highlights.
He listed the nine courses to include Application Development, Graphics Design and Visual Arts, Web Design and Development, App Development, 3D Animation and 3D Modelling, Soldering and Electronics, Photography and Videography, Digital Story Telling and Podcasting, Drama and Theatre.
The Senior Programmes Officer said after the training, all the beneficiaries would be assembled for a Hackathon to develop new technologies through team work, thereby leveraging on networking opportunities for startups as well as employment and business opportunities.
“If she’s equipped, if she knows, if she has knowledge about gender-based violence, if she has the skills that can tackle poverty, she’s in a better position to tackle gender-based violence, and that’s our thinking.
“In fact, right now, they are in their project month. Girls we would have thought are going to be coming up with innovative solutions to tackle gender-based violence.”
“We have some of the girls learning soldering and electronics, they’ve just done a solar generator to be able to power up their community”, the Senior Programme Officer states.
Speaking to Radio Nigeria, some of the beneficiaries, Ms Jaiyeola Dolapo Sharon and Ms Mansurat Abdulhakeem who both enrolled in the Graphics Design and Visual Arts class narrated how the six months training changed their individual lives from being dependents to potential entrepreneurs with market opportunities already at their disposal.
“One of the things we face as youth out there is unemployment. So with this, I will be able to stand on my own to earn for myself with this skill”, Ms Jaiyeola pledges.
” It’s been engaging, interesting, and I am really, really happy to be one of the STEAMinists. I really appreciate the French Embassy Fund. I can use this to defend myself as a female. I can fight poverty”, Ms Mansurat appreciates.
They appreciated the sponsors and implementors of the project for the opportunity, noting that the knowledge gained will help them fight poverty and Gender-based violence.
