Group provides 66,000 Borno residents with protection services

No less than 66,000 Borno residents, comprising women and children in the state have been provided with life-saving integrated protection services.

The services, Arewa PUNCH gathered is a project funded with $1.5 million from the Nigerian Humanitarian Funds.

Speaking further on the fund, a non governmental organisation, Street in Child of Nigeria said it provided and initiated the project.

According to the Country Director of the organisation, Jummai Musa, who disclosed this at an event organised to mark the official close-out of the project on Tuesday, in Maiduguri, she said residents in three local government areas, including: Dikwa, Jere, and Mobbar – of the state benefited from the response.

Musa also said the six months project achieved three main outcomes that included, strengthening community structures and systems to provide support within the selected location, provided children with access to safe environment where they can access protection services, and provided services around gender violence for women and girls within the communities.

She said “The project is supported by the Nigerian Humanitarian Fund. It’s a six month project, titled: Provision of

Lifesaving Integrated Protection Response for Vulnerable Communities in Dikwa, Jere, and Mobbar LGAs.”

The Country Director added that “the project was implemented alongside local partners, including Protection without Borders, CEDAR Foundation for Disability, and Novel Alliance for Development Aid.”

She pointed out, “Forty per cent of the 1.5 million dollar funding went to these partners. The partners came with specialise skills. For example, one of them is specialised around child protection, general protection and legal services so that people can freely seek redress in terms of GBV cases.

“The project actually targeted 66,000 vulnerable people especially children and women in these communities who have protection concern, and we provided life-saving support in those locations.

“We had three main outcomes: the first is around strengthening community structures and systems to provide support within this location. And also, providing children with access to safe environment where they can access protection services,” Musa stated.

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The final outcome, she stressed, was the provision of  gender violence services for women and girls within the community.

Additionally, Musa emphasised that the protection services offered also involved  the provision of dignity kits for women and girls.

“Also, we provided assistance such as economic skills, trainings , and startup equipments for vulnerable women and children in the communities so that they can provide for themselves” she noted.

Speaking on the project sustainability, the Country Director said, “We designed a sustainability plan which is why we work with the government so that whatever we do, government takes ownership of them.

“Also, for each community, we have a community-based child protection management committee. We have empowered them with trainings and skills so that they can support the community in terms of addressing issues of protection concern in the community” she added.

She, however noted further that the project’s implementation witnessed constraints that included difficulty in accessing hard-to-reach  communities and high demands beyond the target beneficiary.

“One of our greatest challenge is on access like in Mobbar, sometimes, we cannot even transport some of our relief items to those communities because of the possibility of diversion of the relief items in those locations. We have to fly our staff with choppers to those locations,” she said.

“There is also high demand for service. As you are providing for them, there are influx of people still coming. Our initial target was 66,000, however, we have reached over 68,000 people,” Musa highlighted.

Thus, the Country Director called on all stakeholders to come together and provide support to  communities  lacking protection services.

One of the beneficiaries, Fatima Aba, commended the organisation, saying the service has improved lives in her community.

“The intervention by the Street Child was critical for our children and women. The items they provided for women as their means of empowerment means a lot to us and on behalf of others, I am saying thank you to the organisation,” she said.