As part of activities to mark the 2022 International Day of Girl Child (IDGC), Flour Mills Women Network, under its Girls in Action initiative had meaningful conversations and activities with girls at the Apapa Senior Secondary Schools to help activate mindset shifts among them.
Over 200 girls from the school experienced a new level of education, and gender-specific narratives designed to keep them informed, confident and focused as they surmount various barriers to the attainment of their dreams.
FMN also gave out products and free packs of reusable sanitary pads with in-person training and education on the use and care for the pads to curb unsafe and unsanitary menstrual practices, while saving costs.
Grace Beredugo, the lead of strategic planning and implementation at FMN Women Network quoting the WFP report, said gender inequality is a major cause and effect of hunger and poverty globally.
“It is estimated that 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women and girls, thus FMN, through the Women Network is directly addressing this gender parity gap to ensure that women are meaningfully contributing to the growth of the economy,” she said in a statement.
“More so, our strategy of directly transforming the lives of these young girls and by ensuring that we have a one-on-one encounter with them allowed for direct and indirect mentorship as we are now well-positioned to meet the girls at their various points of needs.”
Read also:FMN: Driving sustainability in waste management, food security
The Girls in Action project is a strategic and direct response to the ever-widening gap of gender inequality in Nigeria and across the world.
The program seeks to provide girls with the required education, information, skills, and some pragmatic assistance for their various needs at different phases in their lives.
The mandate aligns with the 2022 theme for the IDGC ‘Our time is now—our rights, our future’ a practice and progressive campaign designed to address various challenges faced by girls in our today’s world and to promote girls’ empowerment and rights protection.
“Girls around the world continue to face unprecedented challenges to education, physical and mental wellness and the advent of covid-19 has worsened these existing burdens,” Olasubomi Sofowora, chairperson, of FMN Women Network said.
“However, when girls are inspired, given the right opportunities, and supported to realize their human rights, they can reach their potential and create a better world for themselves, their communities, and the world at large.”
“If we educate a girl, we break the transgenerational cycle of illiteracy and poverty and this is the key goal “of sustainability – with the future in mind.”
She noted that to ensure that the girl children are well-oriented and prepared on how to respond to these environmental changes, the FMNWN created the Girl in Action initiative.
According to her, through the project, we are looking at establishing a certain level of paradigm shift amongst young girls to build the needed resilience, confidence, and courage to confront challenges as they arise.
The FMN Women Network over the years has been driving sustainable growth and changes in Nigeria to ensure that the SDG goal of attaining Gender Equality in the nearest future is actualized.
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