Bauchi Project Office of Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes ACReSAL, in collaboration with the Centre for Nonviolence and Gender Advocacy in Nigeria (CENGAIN), has organised a stakeholders consultation workshop and data collectors training for the mapping of Gender Based Violence service providers in the state.
The workshop was organised to orient the participants on the concept of gender and gender-based violence, especially sexual exploration and abuse, raising awareness of GBV occurrence and incident reporting across sectors and increasing participants’ understanding of the continuum of care for GBV service provision across sectors.
Other objectives of the workshop were to familiarise participants with the established mechanisms for reporting incidences of sexual abuse and exploitation and to increase participants’ knowledge and understanding of survivor-centred post-GBV service provision, including Clinical Management of Rape (CMR) and to strengthen multi-sectoral collaboration, clarify their roles and responsibilities and to familiarise on the GBV documentation and reporting.
In a keynote address, the State Project Coordinator, Dr Ibrahim Kabir, said that responding to cases related to GBV is paramount in the project implementation, and the engagement was organised to bring onboard stakeholders and service providers to strengthen their capacity to be able to provide solutions to victims of gender-based violence (GBV) sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), and sexual harassment (SH) among others.
The SPC also used the occasion and gave an overview of the ACReSAL project, especially the concept, investment as well and components of the project, which targets to resolve lingering issues around Agriculture Environment and Water Resources, with the target of restoring one million hectares of degraded land and improved the livelihood of the people in the Nineteen Northern States and the FCT.
Mr Obadiah Samuel, who is the team lead of the Centre for Nonviolence and Gender Advocacy in Nigeria (CENGAIN), a non-governmental organization advocating to mitigate GBV issues, said that the purpose of the training was to bring together gender-based violence service providers from diverse sectors which include the security organisations, health practitioners, justice, the Media and Civil Society Organisations among others to play a vital role in responding and preventing GBV in the state as front liners for support, guidance and refuge to the survivors of the menace.
He added that the training was to further equip the participants with the knowledge, tools and skills essential to provide the highest quality of care and support on gender-based occurrences and appreciated Bauchi ACReSAL and the participants for making the workshop a reality.
The Participants also shared their experiences at the end of the workshop with a pledge to use the knowledge acquired to achieve the target objectives of the workshop as contained in a statement by the Communications Unit.