By Joyce Onuora, Abakaliki
The wife of the Ebonyi State Governor, Mrs Uzoamaka Nwifuru has inaugurated the 2025 three day Adolescent Girls Boot camp in Abakaliki .
Mrs Nwifuru represented by the team lead, Better Health for Rural Women, children and Internally Displaced Persons Foundation ( BERWO) Prof Nkechi Emma-Echiegu, said the boot camp was organised by BERWO Foundation in collaboration with the United Nations Population Agency (UNFPA) to teach the eighty girls life skills during the long vacation.
The Boot camping organised for girls drawn from Local Government Areas in the State has been a yearly ritual at long vacations as the 2025 Adolescent Girls Boot camp was increased from 40 girls in 2024 to eighty this year.
Mrs Nwifuru described the holiday camping as a life changing experience where the girls would be taught issues like Gender Based violence, Female Genital Mutilation amongst other cultural practices against humanity.
Representing the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs Patience Otozi and her Budget and Planning counterpart, Mrs Chinyere Ituma said the initiative promised to empower and equip participants to unlock their potential.
The wife of Ezza North Chairman, Mrs Elizabeth Nomeh and a BERWO member, Mr Godwin Nwogha who described female Genital Mutilation as the violation of basic human right, encouraged the girls to preach against gender violence, female Genital cutting, medical quackery but to fish out Visco Vaginal Fistula patients in their localities for treatment.
One of the beneficiaries, Benedicta Umeh appreciated the present administration for the payment of the counterpart funding and promised to make judicious use of the holiday camping.
