Teachers key to fight against gender-based violence — Reps spokesman

The chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on media and Public Affairs, Honourable Akin Rotimi, has revealed that the fight against gender-based violence in society would only be successful with the training and involvement of teachers.

 

 

 

The federal lawmaker who represents Oye/Ikole constituency of Ekiti state expressed worry over the increasing cases of violence against women and girl- child, adding that all efforts must be geared towards eradicating the menace in the society.

 

 

 

Rotimi spoke at the weekend in Oye-Ekiti, Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti state, during the flag off of a two-day training workshop for no fewer than 200 teachers in the federal constituency tagged, ‘ Strengthening Foundations of Practice’ organised by his constituency in conjunction with NurtureHouse Consulting.

 

 

 

The All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker said teachers are critical stakeholders in the development of the future generation, noting that it is important to equip the teachers to be more effective and efficient.

 

 

 

According to him, “We also realised that Gender-Based Violence is a big issue in the society, and it is important that we enlist teachers as frontline advocates against GBV. They are the ones that spend a lot of time with the children. They are the ones who can spot children who are visibly disturbed and teach teaching around preventing GBV within our schools.

 

 

“By the grace of God, that’s one of the things I have in mind for children with special needs. But you realise that as a constituency representative, I don’t have the locus standing to do things by myself and a broader context as a representative of the state.”

 

 

The house spokesman, who was elated by the impact the programme had on the participants, said he was executing the mandate entrusted to him for an inclusive teaching environment to nurture the future generation.

 

 

“It is important for me that our teachers, who are critical stakeholders in the development of the future generation, have the right skills and techniques to be able to keep abreast of the challenges in the system.

 

“I thought it was important that we have this capacity development programme to equip our teachers. I’m grateful to God that I found a good partner in NurtureHouse Consulting to be able to provide training for our teachers in the past two days.

 

“The critical areas have been leaving no one behind, which is the central theme for the entire training. We realized that there are different children with learning disabilities, an increase in cases like autism and other personality traits.

 

“For some of our teachers, these things are not very common. They don’t really understand these things. So, it is important that we have professionals come and teach them about this and how to have an inclusive teaching environment to nurture the future generation,” he said.

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