International Day of Girl-Child: Nutrition partners celebrate girls in grand style in Kaduna

Nutrition partners in Kaduna on Tuesday staged road walk, essay competition and debate/quize for schoolgirls in commemoration of the 2022 International Day of the Girl-Child (IDGC).

Reports that the events were organised by Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project, supported by Save the Children International.

The international day is annually celebrated on Oct. 11 around the world to empower girls and amplify their voices
toward achieving their goals, and has “The Time is Now: Her Future, Her Right” as theme for this year’s celebration.

The nutrition partners, with the theme “Our Time is Now – Good Nutrition is Our Right to Good Health” engaged
girls across public and private schools in kaduna after the road walk for a lecture on effective usage of social media
and ICT for knowledge acquisition.

The Project Coordinator of ANRiN in Kaduna, Dr Zainab Kwaru, said the international day acknowledges the importance, power, and the potential of adolescent girls by encouraging opening up more opportunities for them.

She added that the day is also designated to eliminate gender-based challenges that girls face around the world, including forced or child-marriage, poor learning opportunities and discrimination even in what they get as food and nutrition.

She explained that the year’s theme for the event focused on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their God-given rights.

Kwaru said that the ANRiN project in collaboration with other partners initiated and organised the first ever day of the girl-child in Kaduna State in recognition of its importance.

She said “we strongly believe that adolescent girls have the right to a safe educated and nutritionally healthy life, not only during critical formative years, but also as they mature into women.

“This will provide them the opportunity to aspire to whatever levels they desire to attain in future if effectively supported with adequate and correct information on nutrition and encouraged to adopt good nutrition practices during their adolescent years.

“Girls have the potential to change the world, both as the empowered girls of today and as tomorrow’s workers, mothers, entrepreneurs, mentors, household heads, and political leaders.”

The coordiator said ANRiN Project has a core development objective and mandate of “increasing the utilisation of quality cost-effective nutrition services for pregnant and lactating women, adolescent girls and children under five years of age in Kaduna State.”

She added that the objective comprised of integrated Basic Package of Nutrition Services (BPNS) and Adolescent Health Services(AHS) implemented through some Primary Health Care facilities and non-state actors across the 23 local government councils of the state.

“Under the ANRIN project, there is an Adolescent Health and Nutrition Service (AHNS) component. Kaduna State is the only one among the 12 participating ANRiN states offering AHN services to promote their full nurture and potential to full growth and maturity that will enable school completion,” Kwaru said.

Mr Tanko Langaya, the Kaduna State Team Lead of Save the Children International, said the year’s international day of the girl child is the 10th anniversary of the observance.

He said the day is an opportunity to galvanise the international community not only celebrating the advances seen in girls right decades, but also to take stock of where efforts must be redoubled or renew commitment.

Langaya said Save the Children as the leading child-centered organisation in the world with the mission to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives has been in Kaduna State for over 12 years.

He restated the committment of the organisation to continue to support government’s efforts toward uplifting the lives of children.

Earlier, Dr Amina Mohammed-Baloni, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Health, said some of the key development challenges facing the girl-child include discrimination in access to education and access to food and nutrition.

According to her, the challenges occur as a result ot cultural, religious, political and social belief systems in the society and therefore must be curbed.

She thanked the ANRiN project and other nutrion partners working in Kaduna State for collectively commemorating the day.

Reports that other nutrion partners at the event were Fhi360 & Aive & Thrive, Kaduna Social Protection Accountability Coalition, Kaduna Emergency Nutrition Action Plan, UNICEF, among others.

High point of the event was the award to adolescent girls who came first, second and third in the quiz and easy writing competition.