PA Phillip Akintoye Development Foundation (PAPADEF) a non- Governmental Organisation (NGO) has organised a sensitisation workshop aimed at improving teenagers’ awareness of sex education and goal setting among secondary school pupils in Lagos.
The workshop with the topic: ‘The role of education for peace in preventing sexual abuse in schools’ was part of activities of the NGO to commemorate 2020 international day of education.
Opeloyeru Adams, youth and sustainable development advocate, while speaking at the workshop held at the Essy Gold College, Ogudu GRA, said that goal setting was crucial because it motivates and helps an individual attain success and remain focused.
Adams urged youths and teenagers to have a realistic plan of how they intend to achieve their dreams within a stipulated period of time and work hard towards attaining them.
“A goal is important if you want to attain success. It motivates, but you have to set a timeline for your goals and it must be realistic,” Adams said.
Kemi Sokoya, a sex councillor at the Miracle Centre, Lagos, said the increasing rate of sex abuse and rape in Nigeria had made sex education compulsory for children at an early age.
Sokoya urged parents and guardians to watch where and who their children and wards spend their time with while advocating for a stiffer penalty for perpetrators of rape in the country.
The councillor urged teenagers to become conscious of their body and changes in them while reporting any abuse to their parents and guardians.
“In my line of work we have been providing support for rape, and majority of the rape victims are children; I mean 90 per cent.
“It now makes it necessary to start and educate them young, build confidence in them. What is happening now is that children are abused, they are threatened to be silent, and as a result, the perpetrators do it over and over again,” Shokoya said.
Speaking on the essence of the event, the programme manager of the foundation, Eweka Yvonne Ogieomo, said the event was held to educate and improve the knowledge of youths on sex education and goal setting.
Ogieomo said the programme would continue to be staged annually by the foundation while lamenting that sexual abuse had become widespread in Nigeria’s in recent years.
“The aim is to commemorate the international day of education and we are trying to send a message to the younger ones that they should press for peace. Sexual abuse is very prevalent in Nigerian society. That is why we are doing this. Parents and guardians need to talk more about sex education to their children and wards.
“We have been able to achieve what we set out to do by impacting on the youths. Goal setting and planning are important toward their careers, and once they know this early it would aid them. That is what we aim to achieve,” Ogieomo said.
