Katsina govt, UNICEF to enrol 4,000 out-of-school girls – Official

The Katsina government says it has concluded arrangements to enroll 4,000 out-of-school girls in the state.

The enrolment exercise would be implemented in collaboration between the state government and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) under its Reaching and Empowering Adolescent Girls in Northwest Nigeria (REACH) project.

Alhaji Kabir Nadada, the Focal Person, Girl Child Education and Child Development Department, UNICEF, said this in an interview with our correspondent in Katsina on Friday.

According to him, the girls will enroll in Rimi, Mani and Katsina Local Government Areas of the state, adding that the first phase of the campaign recently inaugurated targeted 1,395 girls in the affected areas.

Nadada said the project was designed to expose the girls between 10 and 19 years old with life skills through mentorship.

“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.

“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” he said.

“This drew our attention for prompt action,” he said.

Nadada said the programme aimed to increase girls’ knowledge, nutrition and menstrual health hygiene as well as encourage ommunities 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 said 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.

Also, Malam Armaya’u Abdulhamid, the Secretary of the Katsina Budget Awareness Initiative (KBAI), an NGO, who coordinated the exercise in Rimi, said that 300 girls had been enrolled in schools in the area.

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