The 24-month project, which is supported by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection, ECHO, will provide quality formal and non-formal education to 8,865 children in Damboa and Kala Balge, two of the most affected areas by Boko Haram insurgency.

The project will focus on improving learning opportunities and protective environment through strengthened formal and non-formal education services.

The project will support the following: Construction/rehabilitation of temporary learning spaces/classrooms, distribution of menstrual hygiene management/dignity kits, provision of teaching and learning kits, support and training for teachers and strengthening of School Based Management Committees.

It will also help to address protection concerns within formal and non-formal schools, including Tsangaya and Islamiya as well as strengthening of knowledge and capacity to assess the disaster risks, and to develop disaster preparedness plans, in the target schools.

READ ALSO: Insecurity: Nigeria must address 15m out-of-school children —Obasanjo

The project is expected to benefit 8,865 girls and boys, including 1,200 out-of-school children, and training of 30 volunteer teachers on the Accelerated Basic Education programme.

“This project is a critical step in providing quality education to the children of Borno State, many of whom have been out school for a long time,” said Charles Usie, Country Director of Plan International Nigeria.

“We are grateful for the collaboration we receive from the Borno government and for ECHO’s support, which will allow us to reach thousands more children who have been affected by the North East crisis in the past 13 years.”

“Based on our experience working in the North East of Nigeria, we understand that education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and violence,” said Dr Christopher Chinedumuije Oguegbu the GOALPrime Organisation Nigeria’s Country Director, adding that “This project will help to ensure that all children in Borno State have the opportunity to learn and reach their full potential.”

The new project is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The project will also contribute to SDG 1, which aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.

The new project is also aligned with the ECHO DG HIP priorities and the Nigeria Humanitarian Response Plan, HRP.

One of the project outcomes is expected to improve the children’s access to education, which will help them to develop their skills and knowledge as well as help to create a more protective environment for them and prevent them from being exploited or abused.

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Speaking at a stakeholder dialogue with support from Kimberly-Clark to commemorate this year’s Menstrual Hygiene Day with the theme ‘‘Menstruation Matters: My Period, My Pride,” Country Director of the Plan International in Nigeria, Mr Charles Usie, said the totality of a girl’s life would remain incomplete without adequate menstrual health.

The hybrid event which was attended by adolescent girls, relevant government officials, development partners, civil society organisations and journalists featured panel discussions, experience sharing from the Bauchi online participants and policy engagement.

He said menstruation was neither an illness nor a problem to be ashamed about while calling for open conversation on the subject to eradicate stigma which he described as unnecessary.

“At some point in our history, this was how we advocated to eradicate HIV/AIDS. One of the things we did was to advocate for free condoms. Menstrual health is an issue; let us also raise our voices so that it will get to a point where sanitary pads will become free for young girls,” he said.

Mr Usie emphasised that “you cannot look at the totality of the life of a girl child and not talk about menstrual health and that is why at this time of the year, we stand with all the girls in Nigeria and across the world to say menstrual health is not just a girl or a woman issue but all of us. At Plan International, we identify with menstrual health because it is not a shame, it is not a secret, it is not a problem neither is it a sickness.”

Plan International Nigeria which is currently running a project on menstrual health in Bauchi state funded by Kimberly-Clark, has over the years, provided over 9,000 dignity kits to girls, empowering them with information on menstrual hygiene management, increased knowledge on periods to over 6, 000 girls, with a pool of community members who are better informed about periods, and galvanized Women in WASH in some of our intervention states, to take on the sensitization of in-school girls on their periods with support from the education authorities.

The organisation has also built 155 gender-segregated toilets in schools, which has provided an enabling environment for WASH in schools with regards to Menstrual hygiene management.

Plan International started 85 years ago and has been operating in Nigeria since 2014 with presence in more than 70 countries across the world.

“We want to see 200 million girls standing strong together globally for the next five years. It is ambitious but we know we cannot achieve it alone which is why we collaborate with stakeholders,” the country director emphasised.

In Nigeria, he said the organisation is targeting “10 million girls which will be reviewed” adding that “we want to see 10 million girls standing strong for global change.”

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“After a rigorous recruitment process to fill the position following the exit of our pioneer country director who had been in the helm for six year, Mr. Charles came top to lead our growing and dynamic Nigeria Country Programme,” the organization said in a statement.

The new country director of Plan International Nigeria comes with enviable academic qualifications and more than two decades experience in the development and humanitarian sectors including as the immediate past Country Director of Christian Aid UK where he led a team of over 390 experts delivering life changing interventions for poor and marginalised people.

Prior to that, Charles worked as a National Specialist for Action Aid International between January 2005 and June 2007 supporting the roll out of the REFLECT and STAR community empowerment approaches to tackle HIV in Nigeria.

He was also a team lead heading the child survival and youth empowerment for Care for Children Project- an Initiative of the Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) Jos, Catholic Archdiocese of Jos from 1999 to 2004.

Charles who resumed in his new role today is also currently serving as a member of the Advisory Board of the UNOCHA Nigeria Humanitarian Funds.

He is a member of the Institute of Strategic Management, Nigeria and is currently the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the INGO Forum in Nigeria.

Charles is preparing his Doctoral thesis in Environmental Resource Management with the Nasarawa State University but a Masters of Arts degree in Environment, International Development and Policy from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom made possible as a Chevening scholar in 2012, a Master’s of Science in Health Policy and Planning from University of Benin (still in view-dissertation not submitted), Edo State Nigeria and a Bachelor of Science in Geology and Mining from University of Jos, Plateau State Nigeria.

“I am excited to join the highly dynamic and inspired colleagues at Plan International to build on the solid foundation in the Nigeria country programme in advancing the rights of children and equality for girls,” the statement quoted Charles as saying.

“Nothing inspires me more than seeking and providing solutions to life’s greatest challenges. As an Environmental Health expert, life coach, behavioural influencer and fitness trainer, I believe that people also by right are entitled to live a decent, honourable, fulfilling and pleasurable life, here on earth before they die.”

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Speaking at a webinar organised by Plan International Nigeria on Monday to mark the 2021 International Women’s Day, a guest speaker and CEO of Cee Hope Nigeria, Ms. Betty Abah, said negative stereotyping and misinformation was making online experience traumatic for women and girls.

The topic was: Preventing a Digital Lockout: Challenging Drivers of Gender Bias and Inequality.

It was moderated by Plan International Nigeria’s Senior Gender and Inclusion Manager, Obianuju Osude.

“We need to insist and keep fighting back against online violence. The highest victims of online bullying are young people because of their age and are unaware of where to get help,” Abah said adding “if Ochanya had information that she could speak up to bring her abusers to book, she probably wouldn’t have died.”

Betty Abah had in 2018 galvanised the general public to campaign for justice for Ochanya Ogbanje, a 13-year-old girl who was serially raped for five years by a father and a son in Benue State till she succumbed to the abuse and died.

A Plan International’s annual State of the World’s Girls report 2020 titled ‘Free to be Online? – Girls’ and Young Women’s Experience of Online Harassment’ showed that more than half of girls surveyed, from around the world, have been harassed and abused online.

The report also revealed that one in four girls abused online feels physically unsafe as a result.

Cynthia Mbamalu, the programme director at Yiaga Africa lamented how the advent of social media had brought forward new ways of violence against girls including slut-shaming, hate speech, pornography, bullying, among others.

This, she said are mostly targeted at women to silence their legitimate right to free expression.

Mbamalu, however, called for improved public enlightenment campaign for people to be properly educated on the ills of cyber violence and bullying.

“Some people think they are just twitting their minds and expressing their freedom of speech. We need to put a lot of effort on education and awareness so people know what they write are capable of hurting others,” she said.

The Yiaga programme director also called for law enforcement by government agencies to deter would-be perpetrators of online violence against children and girls.

Speaking on her personal experience, a Plan International Nigeria’s Girls Get Equal activist, Ms. Treasure Success, said at a time she “pulled down all” her “social media accounts due to online harassments.”

Just as she also agreed that awareness was key to stopping online bullying of girls into silence, Treasure further emphasised the need for sex education for children using age appropriate languages as a means of preparing them against pedophilia and other depraved people.

It’s often said that technology drives the future but it’s worrisome that a considerable percentage of the population risked being left behind as a result of bullying and harassments.

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Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian non-profit organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

“It is a shame that another kidnapping of school children has occurred again in Kagara, this time in Niger State barely two months after the Kankara, Katsina State incident,” Country Director of the organisation, Hussaini Abdu said in a statement.

Armed men reportedly stormed the Government Science College, Kagara in Niger State, at about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, taking away more than 40 students, staff and family members, according to media report.

Abdu called on the governments at state and federal levels to ensure the safe return of the abducted students and teachers.

“We strongly condemn the constant attacks on children and educational facilities across the country. Education is a fundamental right of every child and under no circumstances should they be denied of it,” he said.

He also said government needed to develop and deploy new strategies to deal with the new threats to the security and safety of children and their education.

“We advise the state governments to have a thorough security assessment of all boarding facilities and convert those in at-risks communities to day schools and return students from distant communities to schools within their immediate communities. This is to ensure that boarding schools are without children at night.

“We advise the governments at the federal and state levels to urgently address issues of security of schools and other learning centres, in line with the commitment of the country to the Safe School Declaration, an inter-governmental political commitment to schools’ security, it signed on to.

“Governments must also prioritise building of capacities of communities and support them to develop an early warning system and community-led security structures.”

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