From Nonye Udumiri, Aba
A gender and child right advocate, Onyinyechi Nwosu has advised families in Nigeria to ensure that every girl child in their homes is properly nurtured for the future.
The founder of Vivacious Development Initiative (VIDI), Nwosu, a gender and child-focused non-profit organization said that failure to nurture the girl-child properly is responsible to having unprepared mothers in the society.
She explained that since it is the girl-child that grows to become a woman, mother and wife, her poor nurturing is tantamount to producing women, mothers and wives who are currently failing in their duties.
Nwosu stressed that the erroneous and unhealthy social position the society created for the girl-child, has impacted on her negatively, as evident in many adult women seen in the society.
“We’re yet to realize that the general development of the girl-child speaks volume when it comes to the development of a society.
“It’s the girl that grows to become the woman, wife, mother and sister. Every woman by nature is a nurturer wherever she finds herself. If she’s not nurtured properly to nurture another, what will she offer?
“Basically, our culture is placing the girl-child as ‘a thing or precisely two things.’ First as her father’s property and later as her husband’s property.
“This is how she’s raised and this affects her psychological development. We have grown-up women who suffered this and currently have low-self esteem and don’t believe in themselves.”
She decried the fact that most women do not believe they can do anything for themselves and on their own, as they depend on their male counterparts.
Nwosu said that VIDI aims to help the girl child to reach her goals through: Women Empowerment, Girl Child Advocacy, Child Rights Protection, Teen Mentoring and Parental Coaching.
“Even in our schools today, most ladies now just go there, do a little, come out just to get married. They now see their certificate as prerequisite to getting the best husband.
“They actually don’t believe they can contribute to changing the society. Except for few who managed to break the boundaries whom our society considers as wild and men in women body.
“The society fixes the girl child in a spot where it expects her to be and hence the girl child remains at that spot. We can develop as a society. I think we must start the reorientation from home.
“We have a major problem in parenting which is to raise children who see themselves as people who can help improve our society and not just mere observers.
“Parenting is very important. People should not get married for the wrong reasons. We must realize that marriage is beyond beauty and handsomeness. We go out every day, speaking with girls.
“However, our main target is to start correcting from home with our little girls. Many of the grown-ups have gone beyond ‘salvation’ because it’s too hard to bring them back.”
