Promoting Safe Spaces for Adolescent Girls

Dear Sponsor,

Songtaba is excited to update you once again on how your support is used to  improve the lives of young in and out of school adolescents. Times as they say is a scarce resource that need to be effective and efficiently plan and utilized.  Is against this background that Songtaba has supported teacher mentors at the partner school in Nanumba to coach final year student on how to strategically use their time for effective studies.

A total of 1225 girls club members benefited from this sensitization, According to Madam Suzzy, a 35 year old teacher mentor from Chamba block A Junior High School in interacting with girls, told them, Life at the final year is far different from the rest of the previous years, it is therefore prudent for pupils at the final year to judiciously used their time in order to prepare well for their final examination, most especially the girl child student. Female student at the final year is face with double pressures, house hold chores and the academic work at school.  She continues by entreating them to always design their personal time table, taking into consideration household chores/ unpaid care work, schedules at school and their leisured.  Madam suzzy challenged the girls to see themselves as future leaders and responsible community members who has the responsibility to lead and support the development of their communities.

She indicated that government and other development partners have recognize the challenges girls face in the academia resulting from their involvement in domestic activities. This is appreciated that is why special programmes have been designed for the benefit of female’s students who excel at the basic level to support them continue their education. "Position yourself well to take advantage of it" she added.

The learnin event was carried out in 19 sponsorship schools in Nanumba where Songtaba operate and the girls were very inspired by this engagements sessions especially the final year students preparing to sit their final year exams which is going to be their first external assessments outside their schools.

Songtaba would continue with this exercise every year to psychologically prepare our femal candidate before they face the exams

Have a great time!

In the words of Aminatu, the year 2020 looks very exciting to her as they hold their first reading clinic session after returning from a long vacation. she shared very interesting experiences she encountered during the vacation with her friends and also how she missed her network members.

"during the vacation, I followed my parents to the farm to support them when they were harvesting but initially my father was reluctant to allow me follow them but I insisted that since we are on school break I should support them. It is one of the moral lesson I learnt from a story during our reading clinic session that children should help their parents at home"

She indicated that this response to her father ignited her father's interest in knowing more about their newtwork activities like the reading clinic, and so in the evening after dinner she will sit with the father to converse about it and the father was very happy about this progress in her daughter and promise to buy her more reading materials

This feedback was very insightful to Songtaba and a recognition od some progress that is recorded in the lives of girls who participate in this safe space project that is made possible through the support of wornderful donors.

Songtaba as part of plans this year is to create more space for girls to demonstrate their reading skills in a friendly competition among schools.