TRAINING OF COMMUNITY EDUCATORS ON HOUSEHOLD DISCUSSION

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) is any harmful act of sexual, physical, psychological, mental, and emotional abuse that is perpetrated against a person on the basis gender norms and unequal power relation between men and women. It also comprises threats of violence and coercion.
Sexual and gender-based violence has grievous, long-lasting consequences on the lives of victims, their families and communities, and also impedes development progress. Where sexual and gender-based violence persists, women and girls are usually disaproportionally affected.
One of the prominent factors that sponsor the proliferation of this menace in our society is ignorance. To mitigate this challenge, the Coalition of Eastern NGOs (CENGOS) in partnership with the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), Nigeria; with funding support from AmplifyChange organized a two (2) day capacity building workshop in nine (9) states of Nigeria for selected community members . The trainees/participants for the Community Education program were selected across the three (3) senatorial zones in the nine states including Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Bayelsa, Imo, Abia, Anambra and Ebonyi States, Nigeria. The theme of the project is, “Building Bridges to End Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and Increase Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Right (SRHR) Information and Services”
The Community Education program is aimed at training and raising community educators (CEs) who will be at the fore-front in the crusade against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) at the community level. The trained community educators are made up of Traditional leaders, Religious leaders, Women Leaders, Youth Leaders, and Media Practitioners. Their primary responsibilities are to conduct household discussions and compound meetings on SGBV, keep surveillance and report/refer cases of violence in their respective communities to the appropriate service providers.. They will as well work with the earlier trained stakeholders and service providers including Traditional leaders, Religious leaders, teachers, Women Leaders, Youth Leaders, Security Officers, healthcare providers, Media Practitioners/organisations, Legal Aid Providers, NGOs among others.
The notion behind this project is to impact people at grassroots level with relevant information and skills needed to adequately combat Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in our society. We believe that when people are rightly informed, it will be easier to tackle these challenges.
The participants (Community Educators) were so elated at the information and skills acquired through the training workshop as they expressed profound gratitude to the organisers.
We look forward, with great anticipation, to the success of the program as the trained Community Educators will soon be deployed