NDW Facilitates Leadership Training For Young Girls With Disability, Establishes Club

The Network of Disabled Women (NDW) has embarked on a project to initiate and establish leadership clubs for young girls with disability in secondary schools.

Young girls with disabilities between ages 16-20, and numbering about 105 were selected from Government Secondary School Kuje, Abuja. The Kuje school was first to be selected for the project on 12th October, 2021. It was also one of the participants at the One-Day leadership boot camp held on 30th, September 2021.

The objective of the leadership project is to motivate, impact and influence young girls with disabilities on the need for leadership as well as to guide these girls in the decision making process and encourage positive attitudinal changes amongst them

NDW is one of the implementing partners of the project under the Women Voices and Leadership (WVL) initiative. The five-year project is supported by ActionAid Nigeria with funding from Global Affairs Canada (GAC), a five years project.

In her words of encouragement, president of NDW, Lois Auta-Udonkanta urged the young girls to have positive mindset on becoming great change makers.

She said the club was launched to initiate leadership and influence changes among young girls with disabilities.

Read Also: Education: NDW Awards Scholarship Grants To 20 Young Girls With Disabilities

Project Coordinator, North for WVL Project in ActionAid Nigeria, Niri Goyit enlightened the students on the importance of digital technology as it relates to the topic of the International Girl Child Day, 2021. She encouraged the girls to make good use of the internet, adding that there are lots of opportunities available in the digital world.

Madam Goyit encouraged NDW to implement similar project in other schools by collaborating with other NGOs to achieve great results in the lives of young girls with disabilities.

Monitoring and evaluation officer of NDW, Rose Daniel envisioned great leaders who would emerge from the leadership club and change the nation for the best.

The event was a huge success given the large turnout of students. The girls declared willingness to take more responsibility in decision making. Consequently the club and its executives were inaugurated to ensure continuous impact on the students.

At the launching, the club was named “Young Deaf Girls Leaders Club”. Habiba Zakari, an SS3 student was voted President of the Club, Harwa Joshua and Hadiza Ahmed were voted Vice president and Secretary respectively. The club is expected to offer young girls the opportunity to speak on their challenges with guidance and supervision from NDW officers.

Photos from the event: