The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has commenced the enrolment of 4,000 out-of-school adolescent girls in schools in Katsina State through its Reaching and Empowering Adolescent Girls in North-west-Nigeria (REACH) programme.

The programme, which is funded by UNICEF in collaboration with the Katsina State Department of Girl Child Education and Child Development, is being implemented in Rimi, Mani and Katsina local government areas of the state.

The UNICEF Focal Person in the Department, Mr. Kabir Nadada, who disclosed this yesterday in an exclusive interview with THISDAY, said the UN agency has so far returned 1,393 out-of-school adolescent girls to classrooms in the three local governments.

He said UNICEF had also flagged off the distribution of back-to-school kits such as uniforms,writing materials, bags and shoes to the 1,393 enrollees in the three selected LGAs to ensure their retention and completion of schools.

He added that at the end of the six-month REACH programme, 4,000 out-of-school adolescent girls between the ages of 15 to 19 would have access to formal education and be empowered with livelihood, life and vocational skills in Mani, Katsina and Rimi local government areas.

Nadada explained that the integrated adolescent girls programme was also building the capacity of identified community-based structures such as School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs), women groups, Community-Based Organisations (CBOs), surveillance groups to support prevention and responses to sexual violence and child marriage. 

He said: “REACH plans to enrol at least 4,000 out-of-school adolescent girls to schools and provide services to them in Rimi, Katsina and Mani LGAs through partnership with CSOs that supported the government to document the out-of-school children. 

“We are also engaging communities through dialogues with intent to improve knowledge on the dangers of child marriage and work towards attitudinal change reduction on the norms using SBC methods.”

He reiterated that 40,000 community members, women, girls and boys would be reached through community dialogues, community-based structures supported with Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) interventions through mentorship.

Earlier, the Secretary of the Katsina Budget Awareness Initiative (KBAI), Armaya’u Abdulhamid, said that 300 out-of-school girls had been enrolled in schools in Rimi Local Government Area.

He explained that out of the 300 enrollees, 211 were enrolled in primary schools and 89 in junior secondary schools across the local government.

Culled from ThisDay