Abuja, Nigeria – Mediaage NG News – Cases of gender-based violence is increasingly meted out on women and giris, with insurgency rife in the north east region of Nigeria. From forced and early marriages to physical, mental or sexual assault on a woman, the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) data shows that 1 in 3 Nigerian women have experienced physical violence at age 15.
Government have targeted areas of intervention to include improving gender-based violence policies at the national and state levels. This also involves working with varieties of partners to provide survivors with medical, health services and/or psychosocial care as part of rehabilitatation of women and girls who have been abused and need help to overcome their ordeals.
According to the Founder and Chief Executive of Big Family 360, a youth led organisation, Dirug Samuel, his foundation has empowered women and children, using digital technology like SMARTRR to help cope and fight gender based violence, by linking survivors to service providers.
Access to SMARTRR link below
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartrr.smartrr
He said Big Family 360 Foundation has been able to reach over 2,000 women with various kinds of support, as well as over 10,000 children enrolled back in school. It has also given seed capital to over a thousand women in local communities to start their businesses.
“We try our best to provide social integrated services to women, cutting across education, social protection and livelihood to ensure that whatever kind of support they need, they will get it to enable them get integrated back into the society”, he said, while speaking with Mediaage NG.
“We have impacted the society positively with one form of support or the other for women and children.
“Presently, on our own gender based violence app, over one thousand women reported a case of gender based violence and they got support. We have enrolled over ten thousand out of school children back to school in the north eastern part of Nigeria. We have supported women with seed capital to start up their businesses”, Mr. Samuel, a graduate of Computer Science and one of Obama Young Leaders, said.
He aspires to grow Big Family 360, founded in 2018, to extend beyond being a country based organisation to a continent and globally recognised foundation, impacting lives of women and children. The organisation began with just a group of three friends, but, has incorporated over ten persons as full time staff on its payroll.
“From the north eastern part of Nigeria, I was actually groomed by my mum. So, this means I know most of the things women go through . My mum usually say you know you don’t have anybody to protect you. So, for her to keep bringing that thought in my mind, I grew up doing this work, unconsciously gravitating towards supporting women. It’s one of the core reasons and motivation behind what we are doing.
“Big Family 360 came from my drive to have a community of people together and to serve at the same time.
“It’s been quite a long journey. In the process, I keep discovering that I am no longer just protecting my sisters but, other women in the community. That has been the drive in ensuring that women are safe from any form of violence”, he said.
Mr. Samuel said the activities of the foundation has scaled beyond Nigeria, crossing to the African continent. Recently, the organisation won an award from the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) in Nairobi, Kenya. It’s a funding support and an award because, the viability of the foundation’s products were recognised. They are being called to deploy across the African community, not just Nigeria alone.
As a foundation that has worked with the Canadian government through funding, and the United Nations organisations, like Plan International, it has also received individual donors as well.
“We are trying to scale up the African community. In the next five or ten years, Big Family 360 will spread across the African continent, saving women and girls from any form of abuse, and enrolling children back to school.
“We are very sure that we will not just be a country based organisation but, a continent and globally known establishment. The ‘Big Family’ is actually a global family, while the ‘360’ is the impacts we are making in the lives of individuals”, Mr. Samuel added.