In its effort to address the persistent sexual and gender based violence among students of tertiary institutions, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, WARDC, has organized a training workshop for young women in Bauchi tertiary institutions on gender equality and leadership.
The workshop which took place at Chartwell Hotel Bauchi houses girls from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Bauchi State University Gadau, Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, and School of Agriculture Bauchi.
The workshop rigorously engaged the young women on incidences of gender based violence and how they could be addressed.
Dr. Abiola Akiyode Afolabi, the Executive Director of Women Advocates, Research and Documentation Centre says the workshop “is aimed at building their capacity to be able to fight against sexual and gender based violence in their schools and also ensure that they can be able to take leadership positions.”
She said the centre as part of its strategies to fight incidences of gender based violence in tertiary institutions deems it necessary to establish “the young women campus hub which would be responding to issues of violence to ensure that their campuses are free of any forms of violence.”
“So today we are training them about the context of the problem to enable them know how they can participate and address the gender based violence in their campuses and how they can make their voices heard and stop violence around them”, she said.
Dr. Abiola added that the project which is being supported by the African Women Development Fund based in Ghana also supports issues related to women and girls across Africa including Internally Displaced Persons.
“The project is aimed at promoting leadership among young people and is supposed to strengthen their resilience against violence as well as support changes in policies”, she added.
In her remarks, Hajiya Binta Adamu a resource person who engages the students during the workshop emphasized the need for resilience to enable them speak out on incidences of abuse on their campuses.
“Sexual harassment or any form of violence against women should not be tolerated; so what we are doing today is to strengthen the voices of these young women to be able to have the courage to report abuse whenever it occurs”, she said.
Some of the students who spoke at the workshop expressed satisfaction on its content, saying they were embolden to take action.
