National Girl-child day: Hope for the Girl-child

NATIONAL GIRL-CHILD DAY

 ELEMZ HOPE FOUNDATION

JANUARY 24^TH 2017

“YES SHE CAN, YES SHE WILL” So Let’s Encourage Her

National Girl-child day is celebrated on the 24th of January “yearly as a nationwide significant day set aside just for the Girl-child. The emergence of this celebration was based off of the need to offer hope, information and support to the young girls in the world. One of its aims is to creating awareness among people about all the issues faced by the Girl-child in different ways in the society. The issues, unfairness and discrimination of the Girl-child includes the lack of access to quality education, lack of recognition for good behavior or work well done, few women in politics, few women in top positions, an increase in Gender-Based violence, forcing Girl-child to marry without the option of a choice, and female genital mutilation, lack of conducive clean and sanitized environment, health negligence, neglected girl-child laws. All of these issues subconsciously tell the girl-child that she is neither a priority in her home or her society. In addition to that, some societies still entrench a feeling of inferiority and hopelessness in the Girl-Child at a very young age, agreeing with Stella (2008) some girls in some society still live in the shadows of their gender counterparts, they are still denied education and other rights, and are constantly still socially exploited, furthermore their rights to attain womanhood before going into marriage and child bearing are being abandoned and conspicuously neglected.

According to Pm news (2012) a report written by United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, DFID, Nigeria ranked 118^th of the gender inequality index. The report says that Nigeria’s 80.2 million women and girls have significantly worse life chances than men and even in terms of work and career,  women earn less than their male counterparts in some cases and they are still constantly, be it consciously or subconsciously told that they cannot succeed and if they do they are crucified for it. They are been told that no matter how much they try or want it they cannot have it all.  The situation is even gloomier in the northern part of Nigeria with over 80 percent of women unable to read, in Jigawa State; over 80 percent of women are illiterate. More than two-thirds of the Girl-child in the northern parts in Nigeria is unable to read a sentence compared to less than 10 percent in the southern part of Nigeria.  All of this presented via the influx of technology, traditional mass communication and social media informs the girl-child that ‘you do not have hope’ , ‘just forget it’, ‘you caused it’ , ‘you can’t have that’ or that because you are a girl  you cannot aspire and this  is unacceptable if we as a race must  move forward.

For the world, specifically Nigeria to move forward and acquire the positive change we so desire, It is very necessary for the Girl-child to be encouraged to choose right and wisely for themselves, to be told that they can aspire to great things regardless of their situation, to want better for themselves and their society and not be ashamed for it, to be outspoken against immoralities and injustice, to defend their legal rights, to attain their full potential. They should be aware that they deserve and have limitless rights to good education, nutrition and proper health care. They should be well aware about legislations that include Domestic Violence Act 2009, Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 and Dowry Prohibition Act 2006 in order to get their proper rights and face all the challenges in society and life accordingly. They should be taught HOPE, they should be given HOPE. In a bid to be a part of the solution, Elemz Hope Foundation aims to affect the Girl-child positively in this respect

Elemz Hope Foundation is a non-profit and voluntary organization, established in 2015 by Elemoro Latifat. It is a foundation whose objective is to inspire the Girl-child, to encourage her to consciously make right choices. To remind her that she has a place in the world and that a good world depends on her and her choices; change begins with her. That she is a girl and she absolutely matters, it aims at constantly remind the girl-child that as long as she has hope, aspirations, dedication, perseverance, faith and is hardworking, she will grow to be beautiful, educated, respected, loved, successful, incredible happy and build a positively better world for the future generations. EHF also fosters partnership and collaboration with schools and communities through its various activities in skills acquisitions and public motivational speaking platforms.

With its focus on girl-child mental and physical developments, the foundation has a defined target group: the girl-child, the molested girl-child, out of school girl-child, etc. The Foundation acts as a "Beacon of Hope" for the Girl-child and also contributes in the areas of child molestation, skills acquisition, education, motivation and inspirational voice and to promote the need to choose right.

Mission Statement:

TO give hope to our GIRL-CHILD and let them know they have a choice and they can choose. To inspire them to aspire to have it all; be morally upright girls, to be good students, to be intelligent, to have dreams and chase after them, to be proud mothers, to be amazing wives, to be good daughters, to attain success in their career and be useful to their society and nation!.

This is achieved by;

·         Empowering the mind of the girl-child by motivating and engaging them

·         Educating the Girl-Child on appropriate dressing, dress code and moral etiquettes

·         Training on skills acquisition

• Ensuring self-reliance and empowerment
• Educating girls about sex, molestation and abuse.
• Providing appropriate educational and hygienic items
• Provision of moral support for the girl-child

Vision Statement

“TO give HOPE to our GIRL-CHILD in order for them to reach their full potentials by giving them opportunity to make the right choice”

Custom Made: Believing in one's self

ELEMZ HOPE FOUNDATION

30^TH Jan 2017

YOU ARE CUSTOM MADE; BELEVE THAT!

She asked them who is a girl child, they all knew the answer but none of them answered, why?

I watch Jennifer a lot as I am sure most of you do and regardless of her grammatical errors there is something that should be noted and taken from her character ‘Confidence’. ‘Jennifer, have confidence in yourself’ is one of the best advice Toyosi gave to her and it changed her perception and dreams in many ways.

Confidence according to my best bud Google is gotten from the Latin word ‘confidere’ which means to be sure, to believe in, to have full trust in one’s self and one’s ability. Growing up I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself. I didn’t even know what that word was and it affected me in a lot of ways, I was always behind in class because on tests I always second guessed myself to the point where by I would write down my friends answer which mostly turned out wrong, when my teacher asks the class a question, I would mutter the answer, someone would pick it up and receive my applause. This is the same problem girls have this days, they don’t know what they know, and if they do, they are not sure enough to say it. According to a study carried out at the University of Melbourne, kids who are confident early in life usually succeed in their workplace in the future. The Elemz hope foundation is all about giving hope to the Girl-child, telling her she can succeed but first she has to believe she can and most times she doesn’t believe she can. So you can see the need to address the issue of Confidence.

Confidence is knowing what you are good at, the value of what you provide and acting in a way that shows to other that you know, confidence is not to be confused with arrogance or ego. It is been sure about yourself in a realistic and secured way, it is not about feeling superior to others, and it is a contained knowledge letting you know you are indeed capable. Confidence is a mindset, people that are confident usually are much secured, and they usually can rely on their knowledge and skills and strength to be able to handle whatever comes their way. Unlike people that dodge test and exam they usually feel ready for everyday activities be it for test, exams, competitions, house chores and so many other things. They think I should be able to do this not I can’t do this. Lack of confidence can hold people back from reaching their full potential.

Having confidence in one’s self helps us feel ready for the life ahead. Life is tough for girls already and there are always going to be a lot of NOs , high hurdles that blocks our way and opportunities that look scary and quite frankly as girls we might feel weak to continue but with our confidence intact we are more likely to move forward and grab opportunities, and try again and again. It is not just okay as a girl to have dreams; you have to have confidence that you have what it takes to achieve those dreams. You have to always remind yourself that ‘Yes, you can and Yes, you will’! Build a positive mindset and shake away self-doubt. Whatever activity you want to partake in, be it house hold chores, school work, a personal hobby, push your limit and equip yourself to surpass that limit. Always tell yourself that you can do it and sometimes a small crippling thought tells you can’t, it makes you feel inferior and unprepared, it is normal. What you do is to shake it off like Taylor Swift said.

“Never compete with others except it is a healthy and friendly competition”. Instead compete with yourself, try as much as possible to do better than you did yesterday. Remember that always competing with others to make yourself feel better is a sign of weakness and a confident person shouldn’t indulge in that level of pettiness.

Know your strength, and develop them. Do you like to talk, do you enjoy cooking and cleaning, do you like numbers, do you do a lot of drawings, and are you comfortable arranging things? Whatever it is, build on it. Identify your weakness, work hard to improve on them and use them to your advantage.

Read your books, stay ahead of school work. I watched a quiz competition and the coach said that her girls stay prepared so they don’t have to get prepared. When you are always prepared, your confidence will be top notch even with anything impromptu or if anyone asks a question, you would always have an answer.

Remember that everyone has failures, strength and weakness, everyone is beautiful in their own way, intelligent in their own way, unique in their own way, the mistake we make is trying to hide who we are or wear someone else’s character or been in constant competition with other girls. All you have to do is be the real you and watch your confidence grow.

Every once in a while, you would feel low, insecure and inferior and it is okay but you have to remind yourself that you are awesome, if that doesn’t work. Call somebody that you can talk to be it a teacher or guidance and counselor, a friend or a sponsor and be opened with them or drop us a direct message on any of our on Elemz hope foundation social media accounts. Instagram handle: @elemzhope, Facebook page: elemz hope foundation, or call any of the listed numbers there.... We are always here.

Then remind yourself again about your strength and how you are going to change the world with it.

Remind yourself that Folorunsho Alakija was told NO countless times and her confidence didn’t waver, she still built empires in Oil and Fashion, she is married, she has children and she still constantly appears on the ‘rich’ lists

That Ibukun Awosika wasn’t discouraged at the first sight of trouble, she didn’t limit herself because she is a girl, she made it a point to discover her strengths and she used that. Now she is a force to be reckoned with in banking and guess what?   Furniture

What about Mo Abudu?.. She is what you would call a Star girl in the media sector. She had ideas and regardless of hurdles, she brought those ideas to life.

That the great Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job and now you can’t talk TV without talking about her

That Toke Makinwa lost her parents at a young age and she developed herself to become a media personality and an author.

That Omotola Jalade Ekehinde the wife, the mother, the actress, the singer, the philanthropist didn’t always have it easy, the breadwinner of her family then died when she was still so young, she had to struggle and things were difficult but she didn’t lose her confidence, she didn’t run back into a shell, she got up owned her aspirations, believed in herself and then went ahead to get everything she wanted

That J.K Rowling, the author that wrote Harry Porter wasn’t mental stable but she picked herself up and proceeded confidently. Other names worty of mention includes Agbani Dorego, Aisha Augie-Kuta, Arese Ugwu, Betty Irabor, Florence Adepoju and Ifeoma Fafunwa and the list goes on….google them, read about them and be inspired.

Breathe in Confidence and Exhale Self-doubt and self-pity and go get it’.

References: Skills you need, n.d.; Buzz Nigeria, 2015; Make Africa Great. 2016