At the heart of programming and intervention design for the Enhancing Girls Basic Education in Northern Nigeria project (EGBENN) are the unreached rural girls of Northern Nigeria who are unable to challenge and effectively fight the forces of their oppression, discrimination and unequal treatment. The girl child in Northern Nigeria is glaringly a double disadvantaged individual given her sex and age. She is brought up in structures, systems, values, attitudes and practices that create circumstances which violate her right to access education.
The socio-cultural context of her existence not only encourages social exclusion and gender discrimination, but in addition, brings to bare the effects of instutionalised patriarchal practices hidden under the culture and religion to perpetuate injustice and unfair distribution of opportunities, hindering the development of education policies capable of guaranteeing her right to education. The girls grow up with complex of attitudes inculcated in them very early in life. Most often by the time they reach teenage age, socialization processes put them in their place as inferior to boys which they simply accept. According to ten year old Dayyaba Ibrahim, “We are inferior to the boys. I am not allowed to say my mind.’
Through the EGBENN project, ActionAid Nigeria formed and established girls clubs in the 36 Project Communities targeted at building self-confidence in the in-school girls to be able to speak out and advocate for change within their communities. Capacity building activities were organized for these girls including public speaking skills, exposure visits, use of participatory tools, interactive meetings with policy and law makers, debating and quiz competitions, one on one interaction with female role models among others. The girls meet once a week to discuss issues concerning them in the school and map out strategies for mobilization of their peers who are missing education.
The clubs created space and opportunities for the girls to express themselves. It built the confidence of the in -school girls who are already enrolled to remain and complete their education. It creates in the girls a high sense of rights consciousness to be able to resist attempts to withdraw them from school. Through the use of participatory tools such as community household maps, social maps the girls are able to identify their out of school peers, within their communities and identified strategies through which such peers could be attracted to enroll in school. Exposure visits were also organized for the girls and some campaign materials such as Hijabs, school bags and vests produced and given them to motivate them to remain in school and encourage others to enroll. Within the clubs, the capacities of the girls were built to review their school environments and determine their child friendliness, identifying the gaps and solutions.
Key Outcomes
• Girls who were forcefully withdrawn from school and given away in marriage were empowered to report their parents to the Local Education Secretary who took the parents to court and got the girls back to school. The parents were made to sign undertakings that such girls would be allowed to remain and complete basic education.
• Increased budgetary allocation to girls’ education by the Zamfara State house of Assembly as result of the interactive meetings between the legislators and the girl clubs.
• Girls are able to articulate their issues and present same to duty bearers.
The visit to the state Parliament provided the girls opportunity of interacting with the key officers. During these meetings the girls present the issues that came out of their School mapping such as lack of separate toilets for girls, Absence of Female teachers, Lack of girl -sensitive recreational facilities in schools, dilapidated school buildings and absence of instructional materials. One of such interactions, Sadatu Mailafiya who spoke on behalf of the girls requested the Speaker of the state Parliament to “ use his authority to ensure that these facilities are provided so that when we tell our friends who are not in school to join us they will happily come.”
Honorable Speaker, Alhaji Abdullahi Sambo assured the girls of the commitment of the Legislature to ensure that the girls enjoy their rights to education “We in the State house of Assembly will work hard to make sure that all you have requested of us are provided for in the next budget. We will work with the Executive to provide the schools with the entire infrastructure that will school worthy going. I encourage you who are in school to ensure that that nothing takes you out of school. We will ensure that additional 500million naira is added to the state budget to take care of these concerns you have raised”
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