Katsina to train, mentor 4,000 out-of-school girls

The Katsina government says it has concluded plans to mentor and train 4,000 out-of-school girls on vocational skills.

Kabir Nadada, the focal person, girl child education and child development department, UNICEF, made this known on Friday, in an interview with NAN.

According to him, the enrollment exercise would be implemented in collaboration with the state government and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) under its Reaching and Empowering Adolescent Girls in Northwest Nigeria (REACH) project.

Nadada said the girls will be enrolled in Rimi, Mani and Katsina LGA of the state. adding that the first phase of the campaign targeted 1,395 girls in the affected areas.

He added that the project was designed to expose the girls, aged 10 to 19, with life skills.

“Girls of age 15 to 19 would be trained on vocational skills and those of 10 to 14 would be provided the opportunity to have access to formal education,” Nadada said.

“A total of 8,750 girls as reported using the Child Protection Information Management System (CPIMs) had been verified and documented as out-of-school adolescent girls in the state.

“This drew our attention for prompt action.”

Nadada explained that the goal of the programme is to increase girls’ knowledge, nutrition and menstrual health hygiene; and also encourage communities to demonstrate increased awareness and support for the girl child rights to education.

“The programme will also increase access to survivor-centered services, prevention from violence and harmful practices,” he said.

He added that the programme had so far reached about 4,000 community members through dialogue, community-based structure and mentorship to support social behavioural change (SBC) interventions.

On his part, Armaya’u Abdulhamid, secretary of the Katsina Budget Awareness Initiative (KBAI), an NGO that coordinated the exercise in Rimi, said 300 girls had been enrolled in schools in the area.

“Out of the 300 girl children, 211 were enrolled in basic and 89 others in post basic schools,” Abdulhamid said.