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Girls Power Initiative - Nigeria
Programme Summary
Girls Power Initiative (GPI) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit development organisation that equips adolescent girls between the ages of 10 to 18 with sexuality, human rights, reproductive health/rights information; leadership, economic and other life skills to cope with growing-up, thus laying the basis for ensuring the enjoyment of healthy sexuality, womanhood and social justice for future generations of Nigerian women.
Communication Strategies
Since inception, GPI has been involved in several researches on women and adolescent issues and their findings, which were later, published in form of leaflet and books.
- Weekly meetings for girls who are members of GPI every Saturday between 12noon and 3.00pm in Benin-City and Sunday between 3.00pm and 6.00pm in Calabar
- Outreach to Secondary and High Schools
- Holiday programmes for girls in the outreach schools
- Skills training workshops
- Excursions to institutions and establishments to expose girls to professions other than gender based career stereotypes
- Community work for graduating groups
- Daughters/Parents Forum to improve communication between parents and daughters
- Parents/Guardians/Teachers and Health Workers Forum to sensitise them to adolescent issues for their understanding and support
- Library services for public information on gender sensitive issues of health, human rights, sexuality, gender, population and development
- Counselling and referrals.
- Quarterly Newsletter for creating awareness and keeping the girls and the public educated and enlightened on adolescent health and rights issues.
- Training courses and workshops for staff and members of other NGOs to become gender sensitive and critically conscious
- Research, documentation and publication of manuals, books, pamphlets and leaflets to increase awareness.
- Creating general public awareness through public enlightenment workshops and media campaigns for instance the Radio programme- "GPI ON AIR"
- Monitoring and evaluation of activities
- Developing IEC materials for adolescent sexuality education
- Baseline surveys of issues affecting adolescent girls
- Developing curricula (age specific) for sexuality education of adolescent girls.
Girls' Power Initiative (GPI) has commenced a Gender Development Instituteto foster greater understanding of the interplay between women, men, gender and development; institutionalise gender equity and social justice.
The institute was established to achieve among others, the following objectives:
- The enhancement of gender consciousness among the sexes from childhood, through youth to adulthood.
- Inculcate and improve gender analytical skills
- Increase awareness on gender, women, men and development through sharing of knowledge, ideas and experiences
- To increase and develop capacity for gender sensitive development strategies
- To build the capacity of stakeholders including policy makers to bring about policy changes in the direction of social equity.
- To conduct research that would uncover the existence of gender and other forms of inequality.
The Institute, in collaboration with Population Concern, London, held its first training in January 2000 in Calabar, Nigeria.
The training which lasted for one week had as its theme "Gender Sensitivity for Representatives of Youth Serving NGOs, Government and the Media and the following were the areas covered during the training.
- Facilitating Skills in Communicating about Sexuality and Gender Consciousness.
- Theory and Practice of Feminism and Gender in the Conduct of Globalisation.
- Gender Methodologies for Mainstreaming Gender in Development Policy and Planning
- Law, Religion, Culture and Gender.
Development Issues
Youth, Gender
Key Points
The mission of Girls' Power Initiative include:
- Building and increasing the capacity of Nigerian adolescent girls to articulate and critically analyse issues that impact on their health and enjoyment of human rights.
- Increasing the access of adolescent girls in Nigeria to comprehensive and non-judgmental information on health, human rights and sexuality from a gender perspective.
- Developing the capacity of adolescent girls to overcome gender prejudices and grow into self-assured active women involved on equal basis with men in development.
- Increasing the number of informed and gender sensitive adolescent girls towards decreasing the gender gap in social, political and economic sectors.
- Sensitising the public and creating awareness towards the elimination of gender prejudices and to build gender equality.
- Building the foundation for the creation of a gender/activist institute in Nigeria.
Partners
Calabar International Institute for Research, Information, and Documentation, International Women's Health Coalition, the Ford Foundation, Gender, Family, and Development Programme of the Population Council
Placed on the Soul Beat Africa site April 19 2004
Last Updated April 22 2004
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