UNESCO to empower 60,000 Nigerian women, girls in ICT

The Regional Director, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Professor Hassana Alidou, on Tuesday, said educating women and the girl-child in ICT would have positive impact on national development.

Alidou said this at the inauguration of National Monitoring and Evaluation Committee and Training of Non Formal Education Facilitators in Abuja.

With the theme: “Empowerment of girls and women in literacy and skills development through the use of ICT’s in Nigeria”, she said the role of UNESCO was to increase literacy among girls and women to accelerate national development.

She further added that the project was aimed at providing 60,000 Nigerian girls and women with basic literacy and life skills.

According to her, the ultimate beneficiaries of the project are girls and young women who cannot read or write because they did not attend school.

The regional director said strategies had been put in place to reach out to the female gender in the semi-urban low performing junior secondary schools and that Rivers and FCT had been selected as pilot areas.

“Literacy is an ongoing skill, every time you have a new technology it means that you have new literacy skills to acquire so I will like to say that UNESCO is pleased with Nigeria.

“We are partnering with the Federal, State and Local Governments but also as you can see we also have private sector like Procter and Gamble to really address the issue of illiteracy, particularly among girls and women.

“And in that respect, we really thank our partners, Procter and Gamble, for bringing up to one million U.S. Dollars so that we can have over three years’ projects to empower girls and women in the FCT and Rivers State.

“The partnership between UNESCO and Procter and Gamble, manufacturer of Always sanitary towel, will go a long way to ensure that girls are given every opportunity to succeed in life.

“Education is the best investment for any nation, especially to encourage girls to go to school as staying in school is a fundamental factor for success. Education is key to individual opportunity, national growth and dignity of self-reliance.”

So too, Alidou said increased female education would both empower individual women and contribute to improving the well-being of their children and transform the society.

She added that it would also provide convenient gateway for improving knowledge, thereby eliminating illiteracy among women and the girl-child in the country.

In his address, FCT Minister, Bala Muhammad, said that the project would afford FCT the opportunity to strengthen capacity in mass literacy.

Represented by Mr. Nuhu Ahmed, a Director in the FCTA, said no individual, business and community could fully integrate and remain competitive in the 21st century without being literate.

“Providing a literate society is imperative if we intend to succeed in our quest of meeting the challenges of development in all its ramifications.

“This also applies to our task of building a 21st century city with the potential to attract tourists from around the world,” he said.

He added that achieving the Education for All (EFA) goals and vision 20: 2020, education of women must be accorded the priority it deserved, taking into cognisance their roles in the family, community and the society as a whole.

Mr. Musa Yakubu, a Director, FCT Agency for Mass Education, who spoke on behalf of the FCT task team facilitators, pledged to do the work to the best of their abilities.

culled from The Nation