NGGA Advocates Quality Education for Girls to Attain Leadership Positions

The Nigerian Girl Guides Association ( NGGA) has identified quality education as a critical tool in empowimg and developing the girl-child towards attaining leadership positions that would bring about the much- needed global peace.

The association’s Chief Commissioner, Mrs. Maria-Goretti Sule stated this at the opening of the Nigeria Hub of the 2019 Juliet Low Seminar in Lagos.

The seminar with the theme ‘Lead Out Loud: Tackling Gender Barriers to Leadership’, is an international event usually hosted by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

According to Sule the potential of any girl-child may remain untapped for as long as possible and that only education has the key to unlock it.

She said the development was a challenge to achieving purposeful leadership, national growth and even global development peace and harmony.

“That is the essence of this event. You will agree with me that the girl-child is going through many issues which are prevalent in today’s society, such as gender discrimination, rape, poverty, barriers to education, violence and female genital mutilation, among others.

“We must not feign ignorance of these issues if we intend to give our girls the much needed empowerment through education to ensure freedom for them and find the space to develop their potential.

“The theme for the 2019 JLS is a very timely one and this is the reason why we must therefore call on concerned stakeholders to join forces with us to break barriers that seem to hinder the girl-child and young women from developing their talents and becoming who God want them to be,” she said.

The commissioner also called for a legislation that would destroy barriers that had worked against females if the country intends to attain accelerated growth and national transformation.

“We appeal for appointments for deserving women who have the capacity to lead and make impact rather than being discriminated against because of their gender.

“As an association, we are ready to continue equipping our girls and playing our part to ensure that they are mentored and polished to be of great service to the world,” Sule said.

Also speaking, the Assistant National Project Commissioner of the NGGA, Mrs. Lilian Damie said the programme was basically that of leadership that targetted young girls between the ages of 18 and 25.

She said the purpose was to identify gender barriers to leadership and come up with ways of overcoming them.