Breaking Barriers: Community Engagement Mentors Reflect on Progress at Quarterly Workshop.

Aminu Bala Madobi

The ICEADA AGILE partnership, a pioneering initiative aimed at promoting girls’ education at the grassroots level, recently hosted an Activity Feedback Workshop and Quarterly Meeting.

The event brought together Community Engagement Mentors from six local government areas in Kano State, including Bebeji, Kiru, Karaye, Madobi, Rogo, and Warawa, to assess the project’s successes and challenges.

Prof. M.B. Shitu, Team Leader explained that the project was designed to engage key stakeholders in sensitizing communities on the importance of girls’ education.

“We have given them an assigned with clear terms of reference, conducting house to house campaign on girls enrollment, retention, transition and completion, conducting house to house census to understand the state of girls in each household eligible for schooling in secondary, encourage them to drop in”

“Our main concern is increasing the enrollment and retention of girls in secondary education,” he emphasized.

The Community Engagement Mentors play a vital role in promoting girls’ enrollment in schools through sensitization and mobilization campaigns.

Prof. Shitu revealed that the project aimed to review activities carried out in the last quarter and set new community goals to strengthen the campaign.

A house-to-house awareness campaign was also launched to tackle issues affecting girls’ education.

Earlier in his remarks, Malam Nasiru Yusuf Ibrahim, Communication Officer of the AGILE Project, express satisfaction with the CEM degree of engagement,nurge them to maintain the tempo.

Nasir Ibrahim further disclosed that about 130 new schools will be constructed in Kano State to tackle the problem of out-of-school children.

According to him, with the project’s progress and commitment, a brighter future for girls’ education in Kano State is on the horizon.

Sunusi Gajale, a Community Mentor from Kiru LGA, shared his experience of going door-to-door to educate people on the benefits of girls’ education. He highlighted the lack of instructional materials and stark absence of schools certainly in some community posed as a major challenge.