A group of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, members serving in Irele local government council area of Ondo State has organised a Girl Child programme tagged “A Skilled Girl Force” for about 150 girls from fifteen selected schools and their teachers.
According to the corps members, the programme was to educate the beneficiaries on the need to acquire necessary skills which would prepare them to becoming employers of labour rather than remaining liabilities to their respective families and the society at large.
Declaring the programme open, the State Coordinator, Mrs. Grace Akpabio, praised the ingenuity of the corps members to leave a lasting legacy at the host community.
Akpabio called on the indigenes and the residents to tap from the talents of the corps members which would in the long run make them independent and small and medium scale businesses operators.
Akpabio who was represented by the local government inspector, Mr. Ayodele Adeyemi, welcomed the participants and implored them to take the advantage of the various skills and vocation which the corps members were providing freely to them.
Speaking on skill acquisition, a corps member, Raimi Damilola, who is into fashion designing, charged the girls to learn a skill or vocation to be able to stand independently in the nearest future and equally create job opportunities which would invariably erase the erroneous impression that the place of a girl or woman is in the kitchen.
“We are all aware that Girl Child is sometimes denied her human rights and basic needs of survival and this programme is put together to address the lapses and to ensure that you have basic skills which will propel you to greater heights rather than be limited to the kitchen,” the corps members said.
Another speaker, a corps member, Ozulu Chioma, who spoke on sex education, said every girl must be knowledgeable on the topic to avoid indiscriminate sex and unwanted pregnancy.
That, according to her, would prevent abortions which might result in death or damage to reproductive organs.
She stressed that sex education would prepare and guide them on their sex life, starting from puberty stage to adulthood.
In the vote of thanks at the occasion, a corps member, Samuel Olaniyan, thanked the Federal Government for establishing the NYSC scheme and the management for exposing them to rudiments of the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development, SAED, programme.
