Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF), a non-profit organization established in December 2016, to address the high incidence of sexual assault, rape and gender based violence amongst women and girls, is celebrating its 1st year anniversary in Nigeria.
Speaking at an anniversary brunch for its partners, Dr. DaSilva-Ibru, founder, WARIF, said “Since we opened our doors one year ago, we are delighted with the number of lives we have been able to impact through the services we provide. We have recorded over 360 beneficiaries who have either visited our centers or sought help through our 24/7 helplines.
“However, we still have a long way to go as our objective is to reach out to every young girl or woman who has faced any form of sexual violence across all communities in Nigeria. Through the wonderful support from private organizations and well-meaning individuals, we have been able to achieve all this in our first year,” she added.
Come 2018, WARIF hopes to do much more, and so its’ calling on stakeholders and friends of WARIF to support its initiatives to expand its reach to more women and girls who have been affected one way or the other by acts of gender based violence.
“Our aim is to create a society free of rape and sexual abuse and empower all survivors to become fully recovered, strong productive members of their communities. The potential of the girl child is limitless, and we are working hard to ensure that each girl child reaches and even surpasses this potential,” she added.
Some WARIF initiatives include; the WARIF Educational School Program (WESP) which addresses sexual abuse and rape in secondary schools across the country with the introduction of a curriculum to educate and change the existing mind set of children and parents towards this abuse, and the WARIF Gate Keepers project which in partnership with the ACT Foundation, is an initiative established to address Gender based violence in the peri-rural communities of Nigeria.
500 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) from selected Local Government Areas across Lagos State are being sensitized and trained on the early recognition of signs and prevention of Gender Based Violence that occurs frequently in their communities.
Over the next 3 years, WARIF will implement other interventions which consist of series of preventive initiatives aimed at creating awareness amongst target groups of all ages and levels of education. One of the most important is the development and implementation of a curriculum to educate the Boy Child (it is presently not available to boys), and aimed at equipping them with the needed tools to manage their sexuality, recognize abuse and steps to handle and avoid such situations.
Since its inception in 2016, the foundation has fought to create a safe haven for survivors of rape and sexual violence by providing medical, emotional, psychological and social welfare support through the WARIF Centre. The organization, has established itself as the front runner in the fight against gender based violence in partnership with existing government and non-governmental agencies such as the Washington DC Rape Crisis Centre, USA and as an official member of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team.
