Hope Inspired Foundation for Women and Youths (HIFWY) says a proposal has been submitted to the Lagos State Ministry of Education to adapt an improved tool for sexuality education into the State’s curriculum.
Board Chair and founder of the foundation, Ejiro Sharon Okotie made this known while speaking at a virtual one-day national knowledge sharing and learning summit on 5th August, 2022.
The goal of the summit was to share vital knowledge for impacting delivery of inclusive sexuality education for women/girls with disabilities in the State within one year.
Okotie disclosed that a lot of brainstorming went into the project. Her words: “It just feels like yesterday. Here we are sharing our learnings. There’s a need for more collaborations in other to advance the cause”.
“One of the learnings is that there is still a need for more research. The Lagos State Ministry of Education has received the improved sexuality education tool to be adapted into the State’s curriculum.
We are more than happy to share the manual with any organization that may be interested.”
Head of Journalist Against aids (JAaids) and technical partner on the project, Miss Olayide Akani stressed: “We are sharing what has transpired over one year. It has been a challenging learning process for us at Hope Inspired Foundation. We wish to scale up this project and that’s the reason we are holding this summit.
Lois Auta-Udonkanta, Executive Director at Cedar Seed Foundation said: “Women and girls with disabilities have a right to many things, including education, health and others accruing to all human beings. It is our right to be treated equally and to have access to basic amenities and infrastructure. The sympathy is not needed, however equality is very vital.
“What we need to eliminate this problem of attitudinal and institutional failings is to collaborate and mobilize resources. We need the resource mobilization team to help in raising funds for scalability and mentorship. We need to train others on leadership skills”, Auta said.
Freky Andrew, Executive Director, Faecare Foundation and coordinator at BoldHearts Initiative urges women with disabilities to know their rights so they can self-advocate for these rights.
She says: “We must ensure that young girls with disabilities have access to sexuality education. In our numbers we can get the messages across, let’s work together”.
Key learnings from the program include creating a safe space for women and girls with disabilities to discuss sexuality and sexuality education, setting up a platform for parents and caregivers to learn how to communicate effectively as well as creating more spaces among PWD communities for positive pair to pair learning.