Youth Empowerment Foundation, an
organization devoted to training the girl-child with various programmes ranging
from Sports, Education, Environment, Health, and Secured livelihood, on
September 25, organized a Quiz programme at Rita Lori Hotel, Surulere, Lagos, to
test the children from 16 schools in Lagos based on what they have learnt from
the tutors. SUCCESS NNAJI reports.
The quiz was
meant for the children who have been selected and trained based on the
foundations goals; it was also designed to inculcate in them the spirit of
sportsmanship.
According to
Tolulope Osoba, Progamme Manager Youth Empowerment Foundation in an interview
with Newworldnewsng said “Youth Empowerment Foundation works with young people
and we have three offices in Nigeria, Lagos, Ibadan and Abuja.
“We have a
project called Goal that is being partnered by Standard Chartered Bank. So what
we are doing today is having a quiz Competition for this girls over a period of
10 months, we pick these girls from public schools and then we train them on
life skills on football and taekwondo,” Osoba said.
She went
further to say “So today we are having a quiz competition among the 16 schools
in Lagos, they compete among themselves, we try to let them understand that you
can compete healthily amongst yourselves, and whoever wins or loses, you are
still friends. We inculcate in them the spirit of sportsmanship, a spirit of if
you don’t win today, you will win tomorrow.’
Osoba stated
that Goal Project started in Nigeria since 2010, adding that it is a global
project and that they are in about 25 countries of the world.
On expansion
of the project to other parts of Nigeria she stated that it is one step at a
time.
Osoba
disclosed that the group is a member of Child Protection Network, “Because
there is no way you work with children that you will not make sure we are
compliant with the child protection rules and regulations, even for our
partners they make sure we sign the child protection policy.”
Speaking on
modalities for picking the girls for training and empowerment Osoba stated, “We
normally pick the girls when they come into the JS1 and usually about age group
of 10 to 16, but that is not all, when they move to senior class we don’t just
leave them, what we have done is we have two programmes, you can see some of
our big girls, those are the girls we started with in JS1 in 2010, and now they are now big girls and they have become
what we called the Goal Champions. So we train and retrain them so they now
help to train these girls in schools on sports and life skills. We have also trained
them on vocational skills, so some of them you are seeing are hair dressers,
bead-makers, Ankara designers, so we don’t just leave them.”
On the
reason for choosing only the girls, she said “It is a girl empowerment project,
but because of the persistent demand with partners, ministry of education,
ministry of youth and sports, so what we have done this year is to pilot a
project for the boys.
She also
explained reason behind choice of the girls, “Though the choice of the girls is
key because they said, train the boy, you train an individual, but train a girl
yoxu train a nation, because they are the ones to continue to give birth, raise
children, so it is key that a woman understands herself, she is self-aware,
understands issues around her, be intellectually sound, financially
independent, a woman that is not empowered is also a problem.
At the end
of the Quiz competition, Wesley Girls College, Oyingbo, Yaba came tops, while 1st
and 2nd runners up were Surulere Junior Secondary School and Community Junior Secondary, Surulere
respectively. All of them were handsomely rewarded.
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