ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) says it had facilitated the enrolment of girl children into primary schools in 10 communities in Ngaski and Augie Local Government Areas of Kebbi from zero enrollment in 2007 to over 2,538 pupils in 2021The Manager, Partnership and Local Rights Programme of AAN, Alhaji Sani Muhammad-Ibrahim, stated this at a one-day validation meeting on local rights programme (LRP) impact assessment, in partnership with Active Support for Rural People Initiative (ASURPI) in Birnin Kebbi, on Friday.
“We have been in 10 communities of Ngaski and Augie local government areas since 2007, precisely 14 years now.
“We are here now to assess what we have done over the years, to see how we have been able to impact on the life of women and children at the community level.”
As a result of our intervention we have been able to sensitise the parents on the importance of education, issues on water, sanitation, women’s rights, especially girl child, among others.
“And we see how the number of children in those communities of Ngaski and Augie LGAs witnessed the growth of enrolment of the girl child from almost zero in 2007 to 596 in 2009 and 1,942 in 2018,” he said.
Muhammad-Ibrahim added: “As for the boys, we have witnessed increased enrolment of boy pupils from 1,389 in 2009 to 1,942 in 2018.
“We have achieved in those local government areas an unimaginable enrollment as we have now over 4,138 boys and 2,538 girls in primary schools in those communities”.
He also said that the aim of the meeting was to evaluate the impact of the local rights programme (LRP) in all the sectoral interventions around education, water, sanitation, women’s rights and other issues around communities in the state.
“People are being sensitised and empowered on issues around their rights.
“We want to see how we are able to shift power to the hands of the people in the rural communities so that they can be enabled to ask the government to provide the basic services to their communities.
“We are able to push the rights of the children by working with the state assembly, as the government now has recognised the inclusion of children in all aspects of development in the state.”
We are also able to push for women’s participation in the political space.
There are some kinds of affirmative actions around major political parties in the state now to give some key positions to women because the more you get women to participate, the more peaceful and developed a society you will have, ” he said.
The manager called on the state government to ensure that issues relating to rural communities were captured in the state’s budget, in order to sustain the achievements after the NGO may have round-off its activities in 2022.
