By Chris Agbo
Disability Rights Advocacy Center(DRAC) on Tuesday in Abuja organized a Validation Meeting to present the preliminary findings of the Break The Cycle (BTC) project’s baseline and needs assessment to the project stakeholders, get their feedback on results from their area councils, fill information gaps that may have been identified during the survey, and validate the findings.
Break the Cycle Project is an Empowerment project to Combat Violence against Women and Girls with Disabilities in the FCT. A baseline survey was conducted in all the wards of the six area councils of FCT and New Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa state.
The baseline survey was a study to proffer answers to questions on the socio-economic status of WGWDs in Abuja and environs, in addition to drawing meaningful conclusions as to the gap to access to opportunities and social protection services for WGWDs in Abuja and environs and make recommendation to guide BTC project implementation.
In the findings, all the political wards in the FCT except for 2 were covered and a total of 1,156 WGWDs were interviewed. Some of the key findings were 89.7% of WGWDs are unemployed and 96.8% have not been employed in the past 5 years, 91.5% of WGWDs are not aware of any state / national social protection initiatives targeted at the vulnerable people in Abuja and New Karu 99.4 % don’t even know about it, ages 15-20 (48.5%) are mostly exposed to Gender Based Violence, 78% of the respondents are not aware of the services available for WGWDs that experience GBV in Abuja and Environs, 81% of them agreed that WGWDs needs to be empowered to prevent GBV, 76% of the respondents said that WGWDs are not involved in the decision making in their families and the society, 64% of the respondents said that they are not aware of WGWDs occupying any appointive or elective governance/ leadership position.
The data also shown that there is no program for women and girls with disability in almost all the communities visited, no access to financial services and they do not have network to Village Saving and Loans Association (VSLA). There is also evidence from the survey from Abuja and New Karu LG of Nasarawa state that 90% of the respondents asserted that lack of money hindered them to access health services.
The Executive Director of DRAC, Dr. Irene Ojiugo Patrick-Ogbogu while speaking at the event said that the Survey is part of the Break The Cycle Project which aimed to improving the socio-economic status of WGWDs in FCT and New Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State as a means of reducing their vulnerability to violence. The baseline survey is to gather evidence on the issues that will strengthen DRAC’s intervention at the communities and also to engage government and other relevant stakeholders.
“We brought stakeholders together to look at the findings and fill in the gaps (if any) and discuss the challenges in the field. The project focused on WGWDs because they are more vulnerable among persons with disabilities as well as among women without disabilities. Their gender and disability status triple their vulnerability and exposure”.
Speaking further, she said that they will carry along stakeholders in the 14 communities that they will be carrying out interventions to ensure that there will be no bottlenecks and achieve set goals within the time limit.
“We are at the pilot stage of the project and from the FCT, with the hope of scaling up to other states”.
She called on the government to dedicate more resources towards social protection of WGWDs and the existing programmes should also include WGWDs.
The Stakeholders at the meeting were community leaders, teachers, government officers, OPDs and CSOs, they were able to look at the findings critically pointed out area that needs improvement for subsequent survey and make recommendations for interventions.
Break The Cycle Project (BTC) is a 3 year project of DRAC funded by UKAID through Christofel Blinden Mission (CBM).
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MORE PICTURES FROM THE MEETING
