Voice Newsletter May Edition 2022

Dear Reader, 

2022 has been a remarkable and exciting year for all of us at the Voice Project, and we are excited to have you engage in our activities. 

The Voice Project in Nigeria is focused on working with people who are marginalized and discriminated against. Voice works on the very unique principle of ‘Nothing about us Without Us or NOW-Us’. This principle shows that the rightsholders must be involved in all the required processes in addressing issues that affect them. 

We hope that you will be intrigued by the impact the Voice project is making in Nigeria with our rightsholders - people with disabilities, the vulnerable elderly,  youth, women facing exploitation, abuse and/or violence, indigenous people and ethnic minorities.

In May, two grantees, Boys Quarters Africa and Connected Development, shone the spotlight on an often neglected group in the fight/campaign against gender-based violence and put huge smiles on the faces of boys by launching the first boys club against gender-based violence. 

This exciting club was launched at the International Boy-Child Summit, which is the largest of its kind held in Africa. The summit held in Lagos with over 600 students in attendance, and over 2000 boys participated virtually from Maiduguri, Akure, Yola, Ogun, Enugu, and Ebonyi State. 

The Boys Club was launched as part of the implementation of the Voice-funded, Project SABI Initiative. The project aims to mobilize 1,000 men and 1,000 boys as allies toward ending all forms of violence against women and girls and equipping them with knowledge and tools to improve their participation in the fight to end violence against women and girls in Nigeria. The Boys Club will include a series of virtual training and a manual for boys, which includes a 24-week learning track…Click for more details

The Centre for Social Advocacy, Awareness and Ethics (CSAAE) has expanded the coverage of its project by launching the Youth Anchors in Anambra State. The Youth Anchors are a group of active young change-makers and were selected from the 21 local government areas (LGA) in Anambra State to work with the organization to track and monitor the cases of human rights violations in their various communities. 

These 21 vibrant youths will be working closely with the community leaders to ensure youths are getting justice for human rights violations and working towards an end to police brutality. 

The Soro Soke, Park Well project, which CSAAE is implementing, is targeted at sustaining the progress and voices of youths from the EndSARS Protest, which was channeled toward ending police brutality and human rights violations in Nigeria… Read more

This Voice Funded Project, ‘You Matter In This Matter’, is currently working in three Nigerian States: Bauchi, Oyo,  and the FCT. The purpose of this project is to ensure that the democratic demands of the EndSARS movement are kept alive and promises of the government are tracked to ensure their fulfillment. It aims to mobilize actions that will track human rights violations, particularly police brutality in Nigeria, and ensure that appropriate authorities are involved, and Nigerian youths are supported to be better organized and coordinated in demanding a better future. 

In May, the organization paid an advocacy visit to stakeholders in FCT to get the progress of the pathway for citizens to reporting cases of police brutality and human rights violations. The project provides citizens with a  platform to be involved in decisions made concerning ending police brutality in Nigeria. It enables the people, most especially the youth to exercise their rights, use their voice to speak out, and also engage and demand accountability from the government on the progress of their promises made during the #EndSARS Protest. Last year, YouthHubAfrica launched a toll-free line 0800 500 5555 for citizens to engage with and report cases of human rights and police brutality… More details here

In May, Citizens Common trained 20 young advocates on various aspects of social justice to put them on the frontline of advocacy and equip them with the requisite knowledge to have a positive impact in their community. This bootcamp was designed for young people who were actively part of the #EndSARS Protest. 

This 5-day capacity development training equipped and empowered the 20 community enablers with the skills and knowledge to carry out social justice-related projects while speaking out and demanding change and accountability for issues of human rights violations. Beyond the boot camp, community enablers will receive additional capacity  building and mentorship for about six months via virtual training and participation in the social impact community of practice… Click for more

The Voice Naija Digital Platform is a user-centred design created by the Linking and Learning Facilitators, Cognito and NINE, to encourage Voice grantees to share information and learnings from their projects, enhancing knowledge sharing, making it more accessible to the members of the Voice project community. The platform was officially launched at the 2nd Linking and Learning Event, which was held in February 2022, and from its launch till May, we have received over 20,000 views on the content put on the platform. 

The content on the digital platform is made up of contributions from the current grantees, and the communities of practice, in the form of blog articles and posts. We would love your feedback on ways we can keep improving the content and traffic to the platform. Visit the website https://www.voicenaija.org/ to engage with posts and please do like, comment and share.

For the month of May, an overwhelming majority of Voice grantees chose ‘Project Management’ as the Coaching session topic. With the burning desire to ensure that marginalized populations are empowered, project management is certainly a hot topic! Project management is the application of the methods, processes and skills to achieve the objectives and the predetermined objectives and it embodies five phases namely, Initiation, Planning, Execution, Performance and Monitoring as well as Closing

 The coaching session, which was facilitated by the Public Private Development Centre (PPDC), also emphasized the importance of risk management which enables teams to envisage threats and challenges in order to evaluate and plan for them. It was a highly interactive session, and also showed the grantees new and exciting project management tools that can be used to track the activities of team members and also to ensure their efficiency.