Vivacious Development Initiative (VIDI), a gender and child-focused non-profit organisation, has urged parents to nurture the girl-child with the vision of making her a successful woman, future mother and wife.
Onyinyechi Nwosu, founder of VIDI, gave this advice in Aba on Friday, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Nwosu said poor nurturing of the girl-child had resulted in failed women, mothers and wives; a development she said had become a major problem to the society.
She noted that the weighty role the woman had to play in society, demanded that the girl-child was properly nurtured to be successful and not be a failure.
According to the gender and child rights advocate, failure to nurture the girl-child properly has given rise to unprepared mothers and many irresponsible women in the society.
She said that the erroneous and unhealthy social position the society created for the girl-child, had impacted negatively on her as evident in many adult women in today’s society.
“We are yet to realise that the general development of the girl-child speaks volume when it comes to the development of a society.
“It is the girl that grows to become the woman, wife, mother and sister, and every woman by nature is a nurturer in whatever role she finds herself.
“If she is not nurtured properly to nurture others successfully, what would she offer?
“Our culture is placing the girl-child as her father’s property and later as her husband’s property.
“This is how she is raised and this affects her psychological development.
“We have grown-up women who suffered this, and currently do not believe in themselves, thereby having low-self esteem,” Nwosu said.
She said many girls had been brought up to believe they were not capable of fending for themselves, and so they grew up to become solely dependent on male partners.
According to Nwosu, some girls now strive to acquire education and get higher certificates as prerequisite for a better husband, instead of using such to develop themselves and make meaningful impact on the society.
“Parenting is very important, so people should not get married for the wrong reasons. We must realise that marriage is a serious thing.
“We go out everyday, speaking with girls; however, our main target is to start this advocacy from home with our current little girls because many adult women have gone beyond ‘salvation”.
According to the VIDI founder, to achieve this, her organisation is working to help the girl-child reach her goals through women empowerment, girl-child advocacy, child rights protection, teen mentoring and parental coaching. (NAN)
