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As the satellite celebrates the International Day of the Girl Child, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Nigeria has renewed calls for greater concern successful girls’ health, education, and empowerment — with a beardown accent connected combating HIV and ending play poverty.
To people the planetary day, AHF Nigeria held an acquisition and empowerment lawsuit astatine Community Commercial Secondary School, Ikot Oku Ubo, Offort, successful Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, connected October 10. The lawsuit brought unneurotic students, civilian nine organisations, and authorities officials successful a corporate effort to support teen girls from wellness risks portion promoting enactment and self-confidence.
The programme featured sessions connected menstrual hygiene management, enactment development, and broad sexuality education. Students and out-of-school girls besides made originative presentations connected their imaginativeness of what “girls deserve,” with outstanding contributions receiving awards and gifts.
In addition, AHF distributed escaped sanitary pads — some reusable and disposable — and connected teen girls to mentorship opportunities wrong Akwa Ibom State.
Dr. Echey Ijezie, Country Program Director of AHF Nigeria, said the inaugural reflects the foundation’s committedness to addressing the unsocial challenges faced by young girls successful Nigeria.
“At AHF Nigeria, we are peculiarly acrophobic astir the challenges teen girls look — deficiency of entree to education, mediocre menstrual wellness management, gender-based violence, and constricted entree to intersexual and reproductive wellness services,” Ijezie said. “These issues exposure galore young girls to wellness risks, including HIV.”
Despite planetary progress, AHF noted that teen girls and young women proceed to carnivore a disproportionate stock of caller HIV infections. Every week, an estimated 4,000 young women aged 15–24 go recently infected, with much than 3,300 of those cases successful sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2023 alone, 1.9 cardinal teen girls and young women were surviving with HIV — importantly higher than their antheral counterparts. Education gaps besides persist, with astir 133 cardinal girls worldwide presently retired of school.
AHF’s Uyo lawsuit was organised successful collaboration with respective spouse organisations, including the Civil Society for HIV/AIDS successful Nigeria (CISHAN), the Centre for Clinical Care and Clinical Research successful Nigeria (CCCRN), and the Excellence Community Education Welfare Scheme (ECEWS). The Akwa Ibom State AIDS and STIs Control Programme (SACP) and the State Ministry of Women Affairs, led by Commissioner Hon. Inibehe Silas, besides participated successful the event.
Dr. Ijezie emphasised that empowering girls done education, mentorship, and entree to healthcare is cardinal to curbing sex inequality and achieving the UN’s wellness and improvement goals.
The International Day of the Girl, observed annually connected October 11, celebrates the achievements of girls worldwide and amplifies calls for policies that support their wellness and future.
Through its Girls Act program, AHF supports teen girls and young women successful astir 40 countries with the knowledge, tools, and resources to enactment HIV-free, adhere to treatment, enactment successful school, and debar unplanned pregnancies.
“When girls are educated, healthy, and empowered, they alteration the trajectory of their communities,” Ijezie added. “Our ngo is to guarantee each Nigerian miss has the accidental to thrive.”
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