Kaduna State Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment Project- AGILE has disbursed over three hundred million naira in scholarships to the girl child across seventeen local government areas of the state.
The State Project Coordinator Hajiya Maryam Sani Dangaji who made this known during the disbursement and flagging off an exercise said the conditional cash transfer was aimed at facilitating the learning process of the girl child in Kaduna.
Hajiya Maryam Sani Dangaji explained that twenty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-two girls across five hundred and twenty-six schools in the state were benefiting in the second cohort of the scholarship AGILE World Bank project.
“in fulfilment of the requirement of the AGILE component two point five (2.5) which seeks to provide conditional cash transfer to adolescent girls in transitional classes,jss1 and ss1, which has demonstrated the importance of protecting the girl child against social ills of diverse nature through education. we want our girls to be enrolled, retain and even complete their secondary schools “, she said
Maryam Sani Dangaji stressed that the AGILE project which was in seven states of the federation concerned about empowering the girl child with the needed education, skills and digital literacy.
The Project Coordinator also said in fulfilment of their promise, four thousand most vulnerable mothers/caregivers of the girl child were also given green clean cookstoves to make cooking easier for them.
“We are also giving their caregivers green clean stove which is a sustainable household device that would enable them to cook faster and will save firewood consumption”, she added.
In her remark, the Acting Governor Hajiya Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe appreciated the federal government and World Bank in ensuring girls do not remain a societal burden but grow to be positive change makers and contributors to their communities.
Sabuwa Balarabe said the green clean stove given to the caregivers would help in preserving the environment, improve financial stability and facilitate economic empowerment within the home.
She appreciated the AGILE project in helping to reduce the rate of deforestation due to the intense cooking with firewood at home which had done more harm than good.
The Acting Governor explained that the health and environmental challenges informed the AGILE project application of the conditional cash transfer and the clean cookstoves to assist indigent students to continue schooling and help caregivers with cleaner cooking facilities.
“this green clean cook stoves has the potential to reduce absetism of adolescence girls from school as it will drastically reduce the money caregivers spent in buying firewood and invariably, the time they may spent in sending those in their cares to scout for the firewoods”,
“From a technological standpoint, the green clean cook stove are locally fabricated, easy to produce as well as easy to use, which is in tender with the Kaduna State environment policy “, she concluded
Highlights of the event include the presentation of cheques and clean cookstoves to beneficiaries, and a playlet acting by the students.
Cov/Teddy Daniel