by Chidi Ugwu,
Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) on Wednesday advocated for free education for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) of school age in Nigeria.
IFA made the call at a news conference on Gender and Disability Based Violence during the Third Cohort Fellowship Programme of the Amplifying Voices Project in Abuja with support from the Ford Foundation.
Executive Director IFA, Grace Jerry, said the call became necessary to make education free to combat disability-based violence in Nigeria.
Jerry said that their capacity should be built around defence mechanisms and how to seek redress as it would drastically reduce the silence culture among survivors.
According to Jerry, people should be enlightened to know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, what amounts to a violation, what to do when they are being violated and how to go about it.
“The Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) with support from Ford Foundation began the Amplifying Voices Project in February 2021 with the objective of training young persons Males and Females with disabilities from selected states of the Federation.
As Fellows to combat Gender-Based Violence (GBV) perpetrated against Persons with disabilities through dogged and strategic Advocacies.
The rationale for this methodology is that Advocates will be more comfortable engaging in a familiar terrain, and their audience will be more attuned to accept the message which will result in a paradigm shift from what was hitherto obtainable to what we hope things could be like.
“From previous engagements with Persons with disabilities, we came to the realization that Discrimination, Stigma and Stereotypes play significant roles in building the Silence culture among survivors of various forms of violence.
“This fear has resulted in cases of violence against persons with disabilities largely unreported and has also rendered such survivors voiceless and invisible.’’
Jerry said that IFA therefore saw the need to build a network of youth advocates with disabilities and improve their capacity to spotlight and innovatively address incidences of gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities across the country.
She said two youth advocates with disabilities were selected from two states in each of the six geopolitical zones with the highest cases of GBV recorded during the COVID 19 pandemic.
The selected states were: Abia state, Anambra state, Bauchi state, Benue state, Cross Rivers state, Ekiti state, Gombe state, Katsina state, Lagos state, Plateau state, Rivers state, Sokoto state and FCT Abuja.
She said that IFA organised a five-day intensive training for all the selected advocates with disabilities (COHORT ONE AND TWO) with key topics on gender and development, advocacy, disability and gender-based violence, etc.
She added that the Phrase disability-based violence was coined during the training because it became evident that lumping issues of persons with disabilities alongside general issues like GBV will not give room for mainstreaming of solutions and interventions.
Jerry said that having been equipped with the right knowledge, skill set and attitude change, the Advocates were launched into the society to begin to step down training and Advocacy in their respective states.
