Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF) has sensitized about 500 youths at Makoko Community, a suburb of Lagos.
The youths were sensitized against rape, sexual assault, abuse and gender-based violence.
The program was sponsored by USAID and was in collaboration with Slum2School Africa.
The organisations were able to reach out to adolescent boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 19 who reside at the Makoko community.
The youths were educated on recognizing the signs of sexual abuse affecting girls and boys and were encouraged to speak out against rape and sexual violence in their community.
Founder of WARIF, Dr. DaSilva- Ibru, at the outreach encouraged the youths to report the cases to authorities and also made them to know about the availability of the WARIF 24/7 confidential helpline for survivors.
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“At WARIF, we continue to emphasize the importance of tackling cases of rape and sexual abuse at the community -level, where access to knowledge on these issues and the services offered by Foundations such as WARIF and Slum2School are not readily available.
“We hope to continue to collaborate with other organizations and to expand our outreaches to as many communities like Makoko as possible, across the country. By sensitizing these communities and offering counseling and healthcare services to all survivors – we can change the narrative of our youths to a more positive one and transform the lives of many, one community at a time.”
Head of Operations at Slum2school, Ruth Ebe gave insight on the synergy between to two NGOs with focus on youths and fight agaianst gender based-violence cases in Nigerian communities.
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“It was a timely and worthwhile partnership between Slum2School & WARIF to create awareness on rape and gender-based violence as well as the interventions/support readily available to survivors.
“The children and youth understand that they have a right to say “NO” to abusers, to be unafraid to seek help from the right people in the case of any form of violations and to remain advocates against rape and gender-based violence wherever they find themselves,” she said.
The WARIF Know Your Community has previously visited Sabo Market, Yaba and the Oyingbo Brothel, for sensitization programs for men and women in those areas, and it also intends to expand its program to more underserved communities.
