Zainab is an orphan, her mother died during child birth and her
father a local miner died from lead poison. Zainab lives with her uncle in a
village that has no interest in educating a girl-child. One faithful day a trained
MDGs/Development Knowledge Facilitator, a corp member posted to a community to
carry out his primary assignment decided to take a walk through the community.
He saw a young girl sitting under a mango tree, writing on a piece of paper and
beside her was a basket of roasted groundnut which she sells to support her
uncle’s household. He imagined what the little girl could be writing under a
tree when she is suppose to be in the class, he moved toward her and asked, “yarinya” as fondly referred to small
girls in Hausa language, “what are you writing” he inquired, the little girl
looked at him for a while, smiled and answered, “I am drawing my own school”, The
discussion went further and the corp member was touched by the little girl’s
story and her dream to own a school.
That encounter was the beginning of Zainab’s journey through education;
the corp member facilitated her enrollment into school and mobilized the
leaders in her community to support girl child education, through information
and sensitization the community got to know about the importance of girl child
education. Today Zainab is a graduate and teaches at the community school, she
is a strong voice for girl child education and a role model to other women in
her community.
There are a lot more Zainabs sitting under a tree somewhere out
there waiting for someone to reach out and there are a lot that have become
victims of early marriage that have lead to health concerns that have
eventually lead to death. The question is what are you doing to impact lives
positively and support global effort in addressing local development challenges.
Zainab is a shining example of the immense effort and impact of the SERDEC NYSC/ MDGs Advocacy Project which since 2006 to date have trained over 2,700
corp members that have conducted training for 55,000 community development
knowledge volunteers across the 36 state of the country on ways to domesticate
the MDGs and apply it to sustainable community development issues. The step
down training at the grassroot level, in communities across the 774 LGAs has
been quite impactful. It has helped in increasing the number of school
enrollment, access to health care services; environmental health consciousness
and most importantly strengthen the role of communities in finding solutions to
their own challenges through a community led approach.
With the transition from MDGs to SDGs, SERDEC and The National Youth
Service Corp is opening its doors for new partnership and support in moving the
sustainable development train. Haven played a key role in influencing the post-2015 process
by actively mobilizing Nigerians to participate in the MyWorld Survey, SERDEC is mandated and ready
to lead the process and set Nigeria on course to end poverty. Support and partner with the SERDEC SDGs/NYSC
Advocacy Project today, together we can achieve more. Let’s all step up for a
collaborative partnership and be part of this journey to 2030, for people, peace,
planet, and prosperity.
For inquiries and discussion on funding / support, do contact Mr. Victor Omaye A. via email: serdecnig@gmail.com.
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