A one day consultation/sensitization meeting with CBOs, NGOs, CBOs and other relevant stakeholders on Disability inclusion in Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning Empowerment (AGILE) project in Nasarawa state has been held in Lafia the state capital.
Attending the one day programme are officials drawn from the line Ministries implementing the project in the state.
Giving an overview of the project, Mrs Juliana Polycarp stated the project is initiated by the Federal Ministry of Education aimed at promoting the adolescent girl-child education.
She said currently the project is being implemented in eleven (11) states including Nasarawa.
Mrs Polycarp disclosed that the AGILe has embarked on a number of projects in Nasarawa State which include the construction of or upgrading of thirty (30) schools spread across the state, carried out renovation of some selected primary and secondary schools as well as recruited teachers or facilitators to man the various study centres in the state.
She disclosed that so far, AGILE has recorded 3.3million beneficiaries across the implementing states with 1.6 million adolescent girls reached.
Others are a total of 6, 914 classrooms renovated, 84,000 learning materials distributed and 6,700 wash facilities constructed.
Mrs Polycarp further disclosed that as part of Nasarawa state’s preparedness for the implementation of the project, the state government committed the sum of 150Million Naira as its counterpart commitment to the World Bank backed project.
The one day meeting also featured lecture where Professor Abu Egwa Ozegya of the Federal University of Lafia highlighted the need for the Disability of Inclusion the AGILE Project implementation.
He said the Disability Inclusion provides the girl-child with economic, Skills empowerment as well as as Financial iliteracy.
Also speaking on barriers to adolescent girl child education, Mrs Zainab Ogabi identified a number of factors, one of which is early marriage especially in the northern part of Nigeria.
Also identified were such factors as attitudinal, Architectural, funding and administrative
Speaking on the role of Stakeholders especialy NGOs, CSOs and CBOs, and guest lecturer emphasised on the need for synergy to engage in advocacy.
He also spoke on the need for the creation of Dialogue platform, Monitoring and tracking of Disability inclusion and distribution of learning aids, establish Disability Inclusion in Schools platform as well as commence research in secondary schools to ascertain the contribution in government contributions
Goodwill messages were received from NSUBEB represented by the Board’s Secretary, Hashiya Ahmad who also doubled at the occasion as the Ameerah FOMWAN, Nasarawa State; Ministry of Justice, PTA among others.