We need government’s support for all our programmes  -Halima Oiza Sadiq

HALIMA OIZA SADIQ is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chachavi Women And Girl-Child Development Foundation, Nigeria. She spoke with ISAAC NGUMAH on the NGO, its challenges, among other issues. Excerpt:

Why did you establish the NGO?

Looking at the vulnerability of our women and the girl-child and also looking at the background that I am coming from, it became a thing of variety for me to see that the life of women and children especially the girl-child, their peace, their security and their dignity are preserved and protected and that’s how I come about Chachavi Women and Girl-Child Development Foundation. We want to see how the voices of our girl-child are amplified because most times, they have the vulnerable population and how they can be amplified in the sectors of our stakeholders so that they are not excluded. We want to ensure that their voices are heard, their security, their peace and their dignity are protected through sensitization, through awareness and other activities and that’s why the organization is established.  It was founded in the year 2020 and it has been in operations in about 21 Local Governments in Kogi State and looking at accessing the life of women and girl child not just in Kogi State but also beyond the state.

 What is your focus?

When you look at women and children, there are so many things affecting them. So, we are looking at the area of gender inequalities; we are looking at health; we are looking at the area of child development and we are also looking at the climate change. We cannot exclude women and children from them. We are looking at food security because all these things work together. If you look at our Kogi State, we have about 70 to 75 per cent of women involved in agricultural sector to ensure food security even more than the men. So, it is called for attention for women growth. So, we are looking at food security. These are the areas we are looking at; it has effected on our children as well.

How do you prevent drug abuse at the experimental stage?

Good one.  Sorry that I didn’t mention that part of what we are doing because we have a very strong partnership with Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). We have been having sensitization and creating awareness across the 21 local Government Areas with my focus on the young women and the young girls who are most vulnerable to drug abuse. So, what we do in partnerships with NDLEA, we bring these people together and talk to them about drug abuse, the effects, among others. It is something we don’t take for granted because from our researches that we have carried out, the young girls are very vulnerable and most of them are now at the additive stage due to so many factors that push them into drugs. We are into educating them about drug abuse; we carry out sensitization awareness creation and the last UN Day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking was on the 25th of June last year, we did it in partnership with the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency; we did an awareness  across the schools and  the religious bodies.  We went to mosques and churches. We had a stake level commemoration of UN Day Against Drug Abuse to promote and increase the awareness among the people especially those ones who are vulnerable, which are our young boys, girls and children. We go from schools to schools to educate them.

Can you tell us your commitment to increase and improve access to services to the well being of the women girl child?

The work we are doing, we are not doing it in isolation; we also collaborate with agencies with Ministries, Department and even individuals and philanthropists. We get these supports across to our target beneficiaries. What we do through our collaborations and partnership we are able to render services; we work in partnership with the Ministry of Women Affairs for adventure.  There are people that are abused with gender-based issue we refer them to the Ministry of Women Affairs. We have so many referrers to the Ministry of Women Affairs on issues of gender-based violence, intimate partnership violence; sexual violence and other domestic violence. We refer them to the Ministry of Women Affairs. We also have young ones who are also into drugs’ abuse who are coming to us requesting for support on how they can get over the issues. So, what we do through our partnership with NDLEA, we also refer them; they have rehabilitation centres where these young ones are accommodated.  Our staff go to meet them. We have the NDLEA staff who go to meet them for support and counselling, other religious bodies go there to educate their minds, other organizations go there too. We also refer cases to the security agencies.  We work in partnership with the army, the police, the Civil Defence in order to refer cases because they cannot be everywhere. We play our part; we refer them to those necessary bodies where they can receive attention.

Are you in partnership with any organization?

Yes, we are in partnership with the Nigerian Women Trust Fund; in partnership with women environmental programmes in Abuja, Savannah Centre for Democracy Development Diplomacy and   National Inland Water ways, Dangote Cement Company in Lokoja, Kogi State, individuals; I am in partnership with Henry bull Foundation. These are organizations that we are in partnership with.

Tell us about your advocacy and engagement

One of the projects that we have implemented is ending gender violence. It is six months programmes that we implemented in three local government areas. The components of this are to embark on advocacy with stakeholders that would help to prevent gender-based violence.  We visited the local government chairpersons at the local government areas. What we do is to carry out an advocacy movement to the local government chairpersons, an advocacy to the Commissioner for Women Affairs at the Ministry of Women Affairs; an advocacy for women lawyers  and cases to the security agency. These are the key bodies that we are going to respond to issues. There is also a project on livelihood alliance on Forest land case aimed to ensure tropical forest on forest land case and sustainable and adapt to climate change to fulfill human rights. These are under the Ministry of Environment so what we do also before we started implementing that projects, we carried out an advocacy exercise to the Ministry of Environment to the Commissioner for Environment sensitizing and creating awareness on the need to prevent the incessant cutting down of trees to promote planting of trees and also ensuring environmental hazards are prevented. When there was an issue at the community, the forest became a hideout for bandits; the communities rushed down to my office to complain; I asked the communities to mobilize themselves while I moved them to get support from the Ministry of Environment; met with the Directors and immediately a memo was written to the SA security and action was taken immediately.

How is your organization empowering women and girls to a life of security and dignity?

What we do majorly is to increase our awareness on education; educating the minds of the children both male and females at least those ones living with disabilities; those that have been affected by environmental hazards like floods; what we do is to equip them with the necessary information and those things that will make them to be able to stand on their own;  i.e. women certification in nation buildings, women certification in selective appointive positions, women’s certification in electoral process, the education of women; and the empowerment of women. What we do, we educate women on their rights as citizens; how they can be involved; and how they can bring in their own support in nation building. When they get one of these information, they are able to stand on their own. We want to see that women are given the chance in terms of their participations in elective positions. We just had one of the women who came up from one of the political parties, when we talk of women participation in elections; they are out in en masse without fear and intimidation. These are what we want and beyond that level, where they can participate politically without intimidations they are able to stand, these are the things we are campaigning for the women and we also put those information in their minds but peradventure their rights are being violated, we take it up from there and make sure that their rights are secured.

Can you tell us the areas and the communities that your NGO has impacted so far?

We have cut across the three senatorial districts in Kogi State; we have worked in three Local Government Areas but different communities trying to implement our activities.

How many lives have you impacted through your organization?

People that have been impacted through my NGO is over 1,500

Can you tell us about your enhancement programmes and projects?

What we do, we partner with National Development Institute, Industrial Training Fund in Lokoja. What we do most times, is to key in with these institutions. Some students were graduated from different skills like hairdressing, Catering, barbing salon, tailoring and etc, what we do whenever the institutions need people, we partner with them and bring in our young ones from implementing communities to benefit from these trainings, skill capacity for three and  a half months’ training programmes. We do take advantage of agencies and institutions that we have been working with, we key in with them to be able to actualize our dreams and goals. Few months back, there was another agency that I target that was giving scholarship to students at the tertiary institutions. We were given the opportunities to bring in students from tertiary institutions fo scholarship; that’s how far we have gone. We have taken advantage of our network to empower our young ones- women, girls and children.

Do you get support from government, individuals and corporate organizations?

I will say government has created an enabling environment for us; that’s also the support we had from the Ministry of Finance, Commissioner for Environment; these are the ones who had to pay for our radio slot to air our radio programmes, the government too are supportive.

What do you want the government to do to support your organization?

Every year, we have International Women Day, Children Day, International Youths Day, UN Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Practices and these are platforms to reach out to the people and public but our government is lagging behind in mobilizing these programmes.  They should be at the forefront to mobilize these programmes into effects; we need a strong partnership with the government to revive all these programmes.

  What are your challenges while running your NGO?

Fund is a constraint; we have more than one thousand and one things I want to do for the people but the fund is a constraint. I want the government to be involved like never before, agencies, business men and women, civil society and etc we need resources to carry out our works.

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