Stakeholders have converged on and advocated the need to empower the girl child with relevant and necessary skills and mental capacity to succeed in a contemporary world fraught with debilitating challenges for her gender.

This position took centre stage at a One Day Seminar organized by the National Union of Bonny Students (NUBS) on Monday, December 19, 2022 in Bonny as the resource persons, Adata Bristol and Dabota Jumbo took turns to enlighten the participants on key elements of success.

In her presentation, Adata Bristol, who is the Founder and Executive Director of Adata Bristol Foundation (ABF), posited that for them to succeed in life and become a voice in the society they have to trust in God, find their purpose in life, be visionary, be goal oriented, set priorities and be resilient against challenges they would inevitably face in life.   

For you to be a voice in the society, you have to trust God, know your purpose; if you know your purpose because when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable.”

“Most times, it is those women or girls who do not know the reason why they are existing that go for anything less. But if you know your purpose, you know why you are created, why you are existing on planet earth, you would go an extra mile and not to be comfortable where you are. You will find that your comfort zone is not so conducive for you to remain.”

“Be a visionary, have a clear mental picture of what you want to be. Remember that vision is given to us by God; so, you can ask God ‘what would you want me to do? Where have you called me?”

“Be a goal oriented person, as a boy, as a girl, there is something that you need to grow, something that is most important to you, and that thing is your purpose. And grow exactly what matters, don’t be confused. Learn to set priorities, if you set priorities, you will see yourself growing beyond your perceived limits.”

“Be resilient. If everybody who has occupied one position of authority or raised themselves to stardom or risen to one successful place or the other tell you their story, their success story, you will find that there is always a pain in their success story. Nobody gets it all rosy. In education or in your academics, you will have a story to tell, I have a story to tell. Stretch beyond your perceived limits. Don’t be too comfortable where you are.”  

Delivering a speech at the event, Dabota Jumbo, who is the House of Assembly candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Bonny Constituency, admonished the students on making the right preparations for life, noting that right preparation remains the bedrock of success in life, stressing that the female gender possess limitless potentials that can launch them into the front seat in life.

She stressed that opportunities abound in different spheres of life waiting for the visionary and focused girl to tap into make the best of their existence, calling on them to shun social vices such as drug abuse, prostitution and other related vices, enjoining them that there much more to aspire to than resorting to caving in when faced with challenges.

In here remarks, Vice President of the National Union of Bonny Students (NUBS), Tamunobelema Allison expressed delight over the success of the seminar, saying that the presence of the resource persons and other special guests added colour to the event, thanking them and the participants for attending.

“I give God all the glory that this program came to a success. I thank God that we have the students, especially the female gender that was our target audience and we were able to pass the message to them. We were able to make them understand their value and their worth as girl children.”

“This program was geared towards educating the girl child, making them sensitive to their importance as females, not to give up in life as there are numerous opportunities that await them as the girl child. We also used this program to promote the project that we unveiled, ‘Operation Pad 1000 Bonny students’.

According to the co-host of the event, which saw the launch of the ‘Operation Pad 1,000 Bonny Students’, Favour Pepple, the initiative became imperative due to health implications of wrong use or in most cases non-availability of pads for young girls, many of them university students, noting that concerned members of the society should support the initiative.

Pepple, a student of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt (IAUE), stressed that the initiative, which was geared towards distributing sanitary pads to young teenage girls, aims at assisting them take charge of their health and protect them from harmful infections that could be transmitted during their menstrual period, asserting that the time was right for all stakeholders to converge on the issue with a view to supporting the girl child.

Among the participants were former NUBS officials such former Speaker of the NUBS Parliament at the Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology (RIVCOHSTECH), Rumueme, Port Harcourt, Godswill Lawson-Jumbo; former Chief of Staff to the NUBS National President, Amethyst Jumbo; amongst others.