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ELEMZ HOPE
FOUNDATION
JANUARY 24TH 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 118th 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”
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