By Isma’il Adamu
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with the Katsina State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), has launched the Skills4Girls Program aimed at equipping 35,000 adolescent girls in Katsina State with employable and entrepreneurial skills for self-reliance.
The programme, being piloted in Nigeria exclusively in Katsina State, was launched with a Co-creation Workshop for adolescent girls from Katsina, Funtua, Kaita and Dutsi local government areas.
Speaking at the event, UNICEF Adolescents Development Specialist, Ngozi Izuora-Songu, said the initiative was designed to ensure that girls acquire skills that will be useful beyond the classroom, to enable them to impact their communities positively.
“The whole idea is to make sure that girls acquire skills that will help them earn a livelihood and contribute meaningfully to society. The program focuses on building capacity in three key areas which are employability, entrepreneurship, and the capacity to create value and give back to society”.
Izuora-Songu explained that while interventions such as the Girls Education Project (GEP) and the REACH project focused partly on school transition and completion, Skills4Girls builds on the achievements of the previous projects and goes a step further to empower girls economically.
“The skills assessment currently ongoing is to map their individual differences and abilities. We don’t want to work on assumptions. The girls will also go through a co-creation workshop where we will collect inputs from them regarding the skills and businesses they would want to venture into, so that we can design a programme that targets their needs and suits their environment,” Izuora-Songu stated.
She disclosed that the program will run from 2026 to 2029 and is expected to reach 35,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 across Katsina, Funtua, Kaita and Dutsi local government areas.
The UNICEF specialist pointed out that girls living with disabilities will also be trained to ensure inclusive access to valuable skills while the program will also well engage 7,500 boys and young men, and 5,000 parents, mentors, trainers, and community leaders, bringing the total number of trainees to 47,500.
In his remarks, the Chairman of Katsina State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr. Kabir Gafia, said the board will play its role fully in ensuring the success of the program.
“Katsina State government welcomes this program very much as its objectives are in line with the state government’s ‘Building Your Future’ agenda’. The state government has been training youths and adolescents on various skills for self-reliance” Gafia said.
He listed possible skills within the program scope to include production of pomade, soap, detergents and deodorants, as well as sewing, knitting, phone and electronics repairs, and ICT skills, among others, as he urged adolescent girls and other target beneficiaries to take full advantage of the program.
Editing By Godwin Duru
