By Ada Nkong
In furtherance of her objective to produce agents of change among young Nigerian girls, the FCT chapter of Nigerian Girl Guides held a step down training in biodiversity facilitated by the Earth Cadet Network .
The training which saw guides especially the youth converge from all over the FCT focused on food security among other environmental challenges.
The interactive session saw Taiwo Oguntukesi and four others who had attended a train the trainers workshop in Lagos ,pass on the information they had acquired to their colleagues who showed avid interest in learning.
In attendance were the FCT commissioner, Mrs Sarah Obiorah ,the FCT Deputy Commissioner, Mrs Comfort Taiwo and the Youth leader Deborah Evbotokhai Deborah among other executives.
Speaking to Newsannex, the FCT commissioner of the Girl Guides ,Sarah Obiora said the training is geared towards creating a vanguard of girls championing the cause of environmental sustainability.
“The significance of today’s training is to empower this group of 50 young women to be biodiversity champions and also work as Earth Cadet’s , so this is very interactive.
We sent 5 girls in November to Lagos ,they are stepping down all what they learnt in Lagos so they are replicating the training to these people who will also take the training to the grassroots to make sure they get more young girls into their network of Earth Cadets. It is very imperative that we do this for environmental sustainability
The Girl Guides aims to see that environmental challenges which threaten biodiversity come down to the barest minimum because girls and young women are the most affected when crisis related to environmental sustainability and biodiversity loss comes up “.
She said the project is not just in Abuja but in 8 states across the country .
On her part, the Assistant State Commissioner Mrs Comfort Taiwo said by taking part in these activities, the young girls tend to build their self confidence and the awareness to be able to do a lot of things in their communities. We are sure that we have trained our girls for impact maybe to rescue a situation or be part of the change. We train them on networking because in this world now, there are a lot of things that you cannot achieve alone “.
The Team Lead for the Biodiversity Earth Cadets in The FCT Taiwo Oguntukesi said the training is built around SDG goal 5.
“We are focused more on food security, we are focused more on water, land, human impact ,education for all and others that will come up later. The plan is to train 50 girls, have the 50 train 50 each and ultimately reach 50,000 girls within the FCT that will be Earth Cadets saving their little communities by planting trees,recycling, providing food banks “.
A participant at the training Ms Sarah Ogar described the training as very informative and expressed joy at the opportunity to network with other girls her age.
According to her” the sessions and games force you to think and try to contribute as much as possible when questions are raised . It was also an opportunity to meet and interact with friends I had made from the Girl Guides camp in Kogi two years ago”.
Nigerian Girl Guides association answers to WAGGS, the World association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.
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