The Empowering Girl Initiative Committee of Rotary International District 9125 and five clubs yesterday unveiled over N8m worth of toilets and bathrooms for Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), in Dutse, Abuja.
Both the district committee and the clubs built five toilets, five bathrooms, one 13ft by 12ft septic tank, and renovated four toilets and four bathrooms.
The partner Rotary clubs are Abuja Kubwa, Abuja Prestige, Abuja Aso-Golf, Abuja Maitama, and Abuja Lugbe VON, in District 9125.
The Governor for District 9125, Dr Goddy Nnadi said the projects covered many areas of focus including disease prevention and treatment; water and sanitation; maternal and child health, and basic education and literacy.
Nnadi said Rotary places a premium on impactful projects.
He said the organisation will continue to embark on projects that will touch lives in the 23 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja in the district.
He said, “All the projects we have done, are projects that will impact human beings. We will continue to do more to improve the quality of life in society.
FCID operatives grill parliamentary staff executives over alleged N500m fraud
Explaining how the district’s committee selected, GGSS Dutse, the Governor said, “We conducted a needs assessment.
“When we came here, the first thing we did was engagements. We engaged the school authorities to identify their areas of need. This assessment is important for you to know what they want, and that it makes sense to them.
“And then we realized that the environment was not so good, especially for our young girls. It is a kind of human debasement when you have a lady bathing and defecating outside. There were not enough toilets and some toilets collapsed.
On the cost of the project, Nnadi said, “The project should be about N8m. The whole project took us less than eight months to complete.
“I’m so pleased that is so impactful, that when they get in there, they will feel dignified, to stay inside, take the shower and come out.”
The GGSS School Principal, Hajia Fatima Muhammad, who commended Rotary for the intervention assured that the facilities will be adequately maintained.
The Principal said, “I am too excited that my girls would conveniently go to the toilet and use the convenience as expected for either bathing or the other call of nature.“
On what the situation was before Rotary Club’s intervention, she said “it wasn’t looking good. She added, “It was not habitable in any way and not conducive. But today we are smiling. But we feel like pulling out buckets of water and running in there now to bathe.”
“The children are already receiving training and sensitization on maintenance, especially on the need to ensure that they enter the toilet with adequate water to wash and then always leave the toilet the way they want to meet it again. So, this is the slogan we are using now. Leave the toilet the way you would want to meet it again.”
Also speaking, the Chairperson Empowering Girls Initiative and District Committee Chairperson, Lovina Okorn-Ntui, disclosed that the intervention was informed by Rotary International’s (RI) mandate to impact the life of the girl child.
She said: “So when we got to this school, it broke my heart that the girls were bathing outside. Just in the open and you know, the female is open. And when you’re open and you’re bathing what happens?
“You can easily contract infections, which may affect their reproductive organs “So it gave us concern. We came here, we gave them sensitization. We did a foundation laying of the project, and to the glory of God, we’re here today to commission”.
On his part, the Head of the Department of Works, Secondary Education Board, Alhaji Abubakar Haruna Kawo, appealed to other Non-Governmental Organizations to emulate Rotary.
Ohanaeze condemns sit-at-home order in Lagos, seeks OPC leader’s help
Apex pan-Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, has condemned, in strong terms, the sit-at-home reportedly ordered by Simon Ekpa, the embattled Leader of Ekpa Killer Squad (Autopilot), as reckless, and a joke taken too far.
It noted in a statement by its Secretary-General, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, that after failing to do his paymasters’ bid of causing voter apathy in the South-East with the ‘landslide victory’ of the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi in the region, “he appears to have been given a new assignment by his puppet masters – provocation of the fratricidal war between the Igbo and their Yoruba siblings.”
“We blame all that on the Federal Government that is surprisingly treating his ‘international terrorism’ with kid gloves, thereby giving him the temerity to cause more havoc from his ‘safe haven’ in Finland.
“Ekpa and his gang are responsible for the death of scores of innocent citizens and security personnel in the South-East and should be extradited to face the full wrath of the law for terrorism,” Ohanaeze said.
The group, however, condemned what it called the unabated unprovoked attacks on Ndigbo in Lagos State, long after the election had been lost and won.
“The attacks now appear to have other motives other than winning of elections. In the past few weeks, several markets largely populated by Igbo traders have been gutted down by ‘mysterious fires’; the latest being Balogun Market.
“Unfortunately, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, as the chief security officer of the state, appears helpless in resolutely addressing the ongoing madness, despite the fact that so many Igbos equally voted for him”.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, therefore, appealed to the Aare Ona Kakanfo of the Yoruba nation, Gani Adams, “to kindly use his revered office in bringing the situation to a halt”.
“Already, it is becoming a Herculean task to hold the Ndigbo back from retaliation in the face of the sustained “genocide and crimes against humanity” being perpetrated against Ndigbo in Lagos by some “APC thugs” under the command of MC Oluomo, with the state government and security agencies watching the ‘horror movie’.
“We are however consoled by the patriotic position of Afenifere under the valiant leadership of Pa Ayo Adebanjo and urge Ndigbo to remain law-abiding, but vigilant and on guard,” the group stated.
