The United States Consulate in collaboration with Girls Aide have, Thursday, pledged greater support and empowerment to the girl child in Nigeria.
The group made this known during the opening of a series of family-strengthening workshops aimed at empowering girls, with the theme, “The listening father- Conversation between father and daughter.”
The event, which saw a large number of fathers who came out with their daughters at the Public Affairs Section of the United States of America’s Consulate, Lagos, speaks eloquently of the fact that fathers are beginning to see the need to be more involved in the nurturing of their daughters.
The occasion also brought together parents, especially fathers, adolescent girls, and advocates of girl-child empowerment who discussed a range of topics on fatherhood in the 21st Century.
Addressing the participants, the Public Affairs Officer of the US Consulate, Frank Sellin, reiterated the focus of the US Mission to Nigeria in the area of empowering women.
“We have realised that you can’t really empower women in the 21st Century if you don’t empower girls from the start. As your daughters develop, they have ideas of their own. We encourage everyone to listen to what their daughters are saying. It’s not just a question of telling them what’s not good for them but by listening to them. Its often, oh I want my daughter to be an engineer or a doctor without finding out first what she wants or what she was created to become,” he said.
The event featured distinguished guest speakers such as; TV Personality and Publisher of Today’s Woman Magazine, Adesuwa Onyenokwe; a leading Life and Behavioural Change Coach, Lanre Olusola as well as presentation from Girls Aide Initiator, Abosede Lewu.
There was also, a creative session handled by 2015 Mandela Washington Fellow, Kunle Adewale.
The programme was designed to encourage fathers to be closely involved in raising their daughters, and to invest fully in girls’ educational and career success so that girls would have the same access to resources for life opportunities as boys.
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