German Govt, YEDI empower 2,000 adolescent girls with skills to live healthy using football and other fun activities News

Navigation: Home / News / News / German Govt, YEDI empower 2,000 adolescent girls with skills to live healthy using football and other fun activities

German Govt, YEDI empower 2,000 adolescent girls with skills to live healthy using football and other fun activities

By Daily Sports on September 29, 2018

On Thursday, September 27, 2018, an NGO, Youth Empowerment and Development Initiative (YEDI), with support from German Government’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), organised a special football tournament for beneficiaries of the NGO’s girls-only SKILLZ Girl programme at Agege Stadium, Lagos. Tagged the YEDI-BMZ Football Festival, the event witnessed representatives from StreetFootballWorld (Berlin, Germany), GrassrootSoccer (South Africa), and StreetFootballWorld network members from Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Ghana and program participants from Girls Senior High School and Government Senior College Agege as well as participants’ parents, stakeholders and community members, was part of the activities to mark the successful completion of the YEDI-BMZ SKILLZ Girl project, an intervention that has equipped 2,000 vulnerable adolescent girls in public schools and out-of-school settings with comprehensive knowledge on sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV prevention and life coping skills.

The fair-play football tournament utilised FOOTBALL-3 Rules – a special kind of football evolved by StreetFootballWorld, an international umbrella body for all NGOs that use the game of football for social good and behavioural change. Football-3 was inspired by values of inclusion, teamwork and fair-play. Other activities at the event were cultural displays, poems rendition and success story sharing by participating students from both from schools, as well as other fun activities. While participants of the no-winner-no-loser tournament were given medals, all program participants were given certificates of participation.

According to YEDI’s Executive Director, the BMZ SKILLZ Girl Project which was piloted in schools and out-of-school settings in Lagos, Abuja, Akwa Ibom and Ogun State, empowered over 2,000 disadvantaged adolescent girls, aged 13 – 19 years with a girls-only curriculum that contributes to the reduction of HIV/AIDS among girls and women in Nigeria. “The girls were empowered with knowledge on vital issues relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights, life and leadership skills and physical well-being, to enable them successfully transition into adulthood and achieve their full potential as productive members of their community,” he said. He added that the girls drawn from various schools and communities from the participating states, who are now GAME CHANGERS in their various communities, were provided safe spaces where they had interventions on vital conversations about HIV/AIDS and Sexual Reproductive Health, personal hygiene, HIV Testing services, one-on-one/group counselling, fair-play soccer and other physical and fun activities.

•Participants during the programme

Source Daily Sports

Posted September 29, 2018