Foundation to empower 12,000 girls in Nigeria

The Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF) has held its stakeholders meeting to review the implementation of the GOAL project in the benefiting schools in Lagos State for last year and also outline, improve strategies for the programmes in 2022.

The foundation also set a target to empower about 12,000 girls through different life skills this year across Nigeria.

Among those that attended were representatives, principals, teachers from secondary schools in Lagos, Lagos State Ministry of Youth and social development, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Education district IV, Yaba, Lagos Sport Commission, Surulere Local Government Area.

At the stakeholder meeting, Oluwaseunfunmi Arasi, monitoring and evaluation manager of the foundation, gave a score card of the foundation’s activities for last year, she equally advocated for more synergy between the foundation and the stakeholders for the success of the GOAL project in the benefiting schools across the state, adding that thousands of youths had benefited from the GOAL programmes in recent years.

Speaking on the essence of the meeting and future plans especially for 2022, Iwalola Akin-Jimoh, executive secretary of the foundation, , said the meeting which is yearly was necessary to seek the stakeholders input and contribution to make the project more robust for the year.

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Iwalola Akin-Jimoh, stated that the key project for the foundation this year was to initiate start literacy classes particularly for the junior secondary school class 3, while adding that the foundation’s target is to directly target 12, 000 girls for the year across the country.

According to her, “So what we want them to know is that this year, this is our target which is to empower 12,000 girls with information on health, being empowered, financially literate and also being a leader, the main reason is for us to come together and make the project more robust, because when you bring your stakeholders together they have one or two things to contribute.

“And some of the challenges we are sharing with them we want to share with them so that they can make the training more successful. And one of the new things we want to do this year is to start literacy classes particularly for the girls who are in junior secondary class 3.

“We want a situation where we can help them perform better in their final examination. So, if they decide that they want to go to a tertiary institution they can go. If they decide it is a business they want to do, we can help support them”.

Tony Eleme, media officer, of the foundation stated that the gathering had become crucial because to enhance relationships and consolidate cooperation from the stakeholders.

“One of the key essences of the meeting was to enhance relationships and consolidate the cooperation from the stakeholders,” he said.

Ajayi Adebimpe Folashade, teacher at New Era Girl’s Senior Secondary School in Surulere, said the programs has helped shape the benefiting students morally, health wise, especially those from difficult backgrounds, turning them into good people for their environment and the country.

“Because some of the girls are from Badia, Orele, and the other challenging environment influencing them negatively, the GOAL program is trying to shape their lives to make them a good person to themselves, to the environment, to the school and the country”, she said.

(YEF) is a non-profit (NGO) in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, working to improve knowledge, behaviours and skills for young people in: sexual reproductive health, HIV awareness and prevention, personal and team leadership. They also work with young people in reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, leadership and life-skills in Nigeria.