“Primary schools need to introduce information on the Rights of the Child in Katsina State.” (Mr O. Oke, Director, Funtua Academy)

Our main major target groups are young people both in and outside formal education, community based organisation members, and women and girls. This programme is been delivered through a variety of ways including public lectures and debates on National and International issues. National and International Days are used as a platform for discussion, which has also been a valuable way to highlight and increase awareness of development and rights based educational issues.

The Human Rights Forum engages teachers, parents, security agents and legal practitioners in a discourse on ways of promoting and protecting Human Rights through development education. In Northern Nigerian States, there has been a strong resistance by school authorities to carrying out Human Rights related and other social development programmes in their schools. The increased levels of engagement with local schools and teachers during these events initiated a call for a regular and interactive forum to engage teachers and local stakeholders. Teachers advocated for increased levels of development education for themselves, enabling them to disseminate the information to students and also members of the community especially through religious activities.
The forum was held twice in November 2005 with 43 participants attended from 15 secondary schools as well as representatives from the Nigerian Police, local government and corps members.

Our education work with young people has focused on promoting rights and protection of children from poverty, abuse, exploitation and harmful practises in accordance with the Child Rights Bill passed by the Nigeria Government in 2003. Cases of child abuse, gynaecological problems as a consequence of early and forced marriage are some of the pressing issues we come across in an environment where many children and adults remain unaware of their rights and how to use them. We have also founmd many young boys who are separated from their families and sent to other cities to acquire Islamic education (Almarjari) – take out We have addressed these issues through co-ordinating competitions with local schools on subjects related to history, politics, culture and rights to stimulate discussion and raise awareness of the issues affecting Africa among young people.

Hauwa Community College Human Rights Day 2005 event