JAKIN N.G.O with support from Canada Fund for Local Initiative, CFLI has established a community structure to tackle Rape and Sexual Abuse in Lagos Slums.
The project which started in November 2019 and tagged Community Centered Campaign against Rape and Sexual Abuse (3CARS) focused on creating a structure that will help the communities to take ownership of the fight against Rape and Sexual Abuse.
Implemented in three major slum communities in Lagos state, the NGO focused on training 30 slum dwelling girls who were selected from the three slum communities under the 3CARS initiative. The adolescent slum dwelling girls served as ambassadors of the project on sexual abuse, rape, life building skills and gender based violence.
Also partaking in the training were 30 community leaders who were charged with the responsibility of sustaining the structure that had been put in place by the NGO after the exit symposium.
Giving an account of the successes recorded during the cause of the campaign, while speaking at the exit symposium, the ambassadors revealed that they reached a total of 3,000 girls with the behavioural change message instilled in them by the NGO.
According to the ambassadors, in 5 weeks, 10 adolescents between the ages of 10 to 15 opened up to the ambassadors and shared with them on how they were abused, of which four cases have been referred to Women at Risk International Foundation, WARIF and Mirabel Centre while six cases are still under investigations.
Part of the activities carried out by the NGO during the cause of the project includes intensive advocacies, community education and enlightenment, Sensitization and awareness creation on child defilement, rape, sexual abuse prevention care and support services for survivors.
Speaking with journalist at the exit Symposium of the project, the President and CEO of JAKIN Initiative, Olubukola Adebiyi, revealed that structures have been put in place to ensure that the battle against the menace of Rape and Sexual Abuse continues to thrive as efforts were ongoing to make sure that the community leaders continue from where JAKIN NGO stops.
“The project started in November and it is a three to four months program, this particular activity is the last activity of the project,” She said.
Further speaking on the sustainability of the initiative as the NGO was embarking on its last phase of the Project, Mrs. Adebiyi said “That’s the whole idea of the 2CARS committee, it is a community committee it doesn’t belong to us.
“What we did is that we trained 10 community stake holders and 10 ambassadors, making it 20. We’ve done advocacy to the community leaders and also the chairmen of local government, so they are the ones that will take it up from there.
“We have circulated the community with the necessary information and from here they can go a step further. And luckily we have the United Nations Spot light initiative also coming up soon and they are also looking at community structures across Lagos state and Nigeria because we have UN parastatal that are involved in the project; UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA and others.
“They are also taking up another round of community involvement projects, there is going to be more and from what the Ministry of Youth and Social development has talked about, it is evident that the Lagos state Government is working extensively with community structure as well as the National Orientation Agency that is working with the spot light initiative to make sure that such structures are sustained beyond initiators of the project”, she explained.
Speaking further on the project, Mrs. Adebiyi said, “Now the whole essence of what we are doing in the 3CARS project is, how the community can take ownership for this kind of situation; how they can take ownership to tackle rape and sexual abuse and also get some justice for survivors and let our community be totally clean of such.
Mrs, Adebiyi who said that the next line of action for the NGO is to expand the project beyond the communities covered revealed that the NGO was going to seek more support to scale up the campaign.
“What we have done now is a pilot so the next step is how we can scale up. Even for Lagos state we are only in two local government and we have about 20 LGAs, so we are going to seek for more support to have this scaled up and with spotlight initiative coming in, supported by the United Nations with the National Orientation Agency, they are going to escalate it beyond what JAKIN can do,” she said.
Commending and congratulating JAKIN NGO for a job well done Marion St-Cyr Lachance, the representative of the Sponsors, Canada Fund for Local Initiative, CFLI, who doubled as the secretary to the High Commissioner of Canada in Nigeria, revealed that the commission was proud of partnering with the NGO for the first time and looked forward to many more partnership.
“We are really proud that we are partnering with JAKIN for the first time, I hope we will have many more partnership in that area, “she said.
