M4D graduates fourth set of girls from Life Skills Club (LSC) in Rimi community

The DFID-funded Mobilising for Development (M4D) programme has Tuesday graduated the fourth set of members of its Life Skills Club in Rimi town of Sumaila local government area (LGA) of Kano state. The Life Skills Clubs (LSCs) are a multi-purpose platform for adolescent girls between the ages of 13 and 17.

Members of the LSCs were mentored in areas as diverse as basic literacy, conflict management, communication and financial management as well as trained in various entrepreneurial skills including bead-making, soap-making, cooking as well as fragrances and perfume making.

“As well as communications skills and human rights we were also trained on managing conflict and finances as well as entrepreneurship,” says Ummi Abdullahi, one of the graduates of the LSC at Rimi. “We learnt how to produce perfumes and air fresheners and many of us can now pay for their school fees as well as buy school uniforms from the proceeds.”

Khadija Muhammad is the mother of one of the graduates who says she was happy that her daughter, Fadila Shehu, could now pay for her school fees from the proceeds of her soya beans cake business.

Responding to series of demands made by members of the Rimi LSC, the interim management officer for Sumaila, Danlami Ladan, pledged to ensure primary and secondary schools for girls were provided in communities were girls education was being hampered either by lack of a primary school or lack of a girls’ secondary school.

“Although we are in an economic recession, the LGA will try and provide primary and girls’ secondary schools in communities where they are lacking considering the importance of girls’ education. We are grateful to M4D and thus will ensure sustainability and expansion of the LSCs to other parts of Sumaila,” pledged Ladan.