By Christiana Okechukwu | Project Leader
We continued to tutor Maid Strong girls in academic subjects. We continued to house six girls in our Safe Haven Segment of the Maid Strong Project. We paid for these girls to be attached to various skills acquisition places. Three of the girls are learning make- up artistry and how to run a hair dressing/ beauty salon. Two of the girls are learning Event hosting, baking, and decoration, one of the girls is learning printing.
The highlight of this period is the annual symposium. We held our annual symposium in two of our satellite centres--Ogidi and Ozalla Ezimo. The turn out was great. All together, we had a total of 457 people in attendance broken down as follows: females 260 and males 197; Ages 9-18 = 270; Ages 19-30 = 121; Ages 30+ = 66. The theme for the symposium was "Strengthening of the Mkpuke to Stop Girl Trafficking." Mkpuke in Igbo language is not just kitchen. The Metaphor is women's area of living and operation within the family. The man has Obi while the woman has Mkpuke. Mkpuke is where the children are nurtured and made what they eventually become. Therefore, if Mkpuke is unhealthy or greedy or ignorant or poor the children most often become unhealthy or greedy or poor or ignorant. If Mkpuke inculcates the idea that children need to bring in money into the family through any means, then the girls imbibe the value and sometimes prostitute themselves or agree to be trafficked in order to meet with mkpuke expectations.
We had three presenters at Ogid-- Inwelle centre representative, Odida Ogidi Women Leader, and a male stakeholder. At Ogidi, two hundred children received Christmas presents from Inwelle Centre Santa Clause. This is in the bid to satisfy one area of need of the indigent family whose children watch and yearn for the toys middle class children in the community have.
At Ozalla Ezimo, Maid Strong Girls lectured the audience on the concept of Maid Strong. Three people presented at Ozalla Ezimo-- Inwelle centre Representative, Maid Strong leader at Ozalla Ezimo Centre, and the best 2019 Maid Strong Boot Camper. Maid Strong girls held a debate on the "Importance of Education as the Bedrock of a Better Future." It was really well presented. We were proud of the girls effort. We believe that we have awakened one area of education for the girls in that community as they are already begining to think of starting a debating society. We believe that it is one area of developing their critical thinking capacity.
At the two centres, there was eating, there was dancing, and there was merrymaking as well.
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