Girls Education: FMI, UNICEF Dialogues With Media Professionals on Advocacy
By Uangbaoje Alex,
Zamfara
As part of measures to engender media advocacy for Girls education in Nigeria, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Child Rights Information Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Information on Monday begins ‘A Two-day Media Dialogue On Girls For Girls (G4G), Gusau, Zamfara
State for Journalists working with national media across the country.
The G4G initiative is a safe space extra curricular programme met to help support girls to remain in school and improve their learning achievements in Northern Nigeria, currently being implemented in five states of Bauchi, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara.
Declaring the meeting open, Deputy Director/Head, Advocacy/Child Rights Information Bureau, Mr. Olumide Osanyinpeju, who represented by Zira Zakka, Principal Information Officer of the bureau, attributed the success of every developmental processes in any society to the girl child.
“It is worthy to note that girls are a very important part of our society, and indeed a high percentage of success in developmental processes in any society could be associated to them because of the peculiar place they occupy in the homes, and the role they play
in the society at large. This position buttresses the need to ensure that they are empowered, especially through education.
“We all know that the Girl 4 Girl Initiative is a component of the Girls’ Education Project Phase 3 being implemented in Northern Nigeria to help support girls to remain in sch and improve their learning achievement, and we have been a part of this programme through this media dialogue.
“At this point, there is need to appreciate that some progress has been made in this bid, but a lot still needs to be done considering the fact that a large number of girl children are yet to be captured in this programme. For this reason, this media dialogue was organized, to enlighten the media on Girl Education issues in focus states”. He noted
reason, this media dialogue was organized, to enlighten the media on Girl Education issues in focus states”. He noted
.
Mr. Olumide, appealed to the media to help spotlight the G4G programme, saying, “considering how successful the media have been in creating visibility for development issues and telling the people what to think about, I wish you all to appreciate, at this point, that your well defined reports and stories are still needed to sensitize the people
especially the duty bearers of the need to enroll the girl child in school.”
He commended UNICEF and all other partners for their partnership with the Federal and State Government of Nigeria, and for their support in ensuring that basic education is brought to the girl child in Northern Nigeria.
Earlier, UNICEF Abuja, Media and External Relation Officer, Geoffrey Njoku, said the purpose of the dialogue was to ensure that journalists are enlightened on the concept of G4G and to engenders media advocacy for Girls Education.
“Create visibility for G4G, generate human interest stories for publication, create visibility for G4G donors; like UKAID. And to also form a core media professionals knowledgeable about G4G. He added.
