A non-governmental organisation in Kano State, Bridge Connect Africa Initiative (BCAI), has trained another set of 50 Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors and those at risk, with a view to equipping them with the knowledge in recognizing all forms of GBV and how to handle it.
The participants who are all women were selected across seven local government area of the state – Dawakin tofa, Bichi, Garko, Rimini Gado, Dawakin Kudu, Mijirbir and Kumbtoso.
Speaking during the two- day program tagged, ‘Promoting Women’s Economic Growth Against Violence through Sustainable Practices in Kano’, the project team lead, Ms. Makkiyya Suleiman, said the nine months project is carried out through BCAI’s ‘Women Against Violence Empowerment through Sustainability (WAVES)’ model program.
“The WAVES model is a model that is being developed to works at the intersection of gender based violence, women economic empowerment advocacy as well as entrepreneurship.
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“We are empowering women and empowering their businesses through a sustainable model. The first phase of the project was carried out five months ago with support by the Canadian government,” she stated.
She explained that participants were taken through GBV survivor pathways, communication and boundary setting, community advocacy and legal guidance aimed at empowering them to taking action against GBV and becoming champions in their localities.
According to Ms. Suleiman, the training brought experts from various field ranging from the security (police), public health specialist and lawyers who made different presentations on subjects related to GBV to broaden their scope and how to asses support.
She maintained that the program would also empower the women on other sustainable and entrepreneurship trainings such as Climate-smart agriculture, business development and provide business opportunity fora to enable them thrive economically.
She also highlighted of BCAI’s overall goal to empower 100,000 women in Kano State by 2030, targeting to reducing the cases of GBV in the state.
