Life Skills coaching.

Girls have so much to go through.  Many of the issues they face ,they can do nothing about, but they can be taught how they respond to issues.They can learn   to not only go through life's challenges but to soar and thrive at it.

At Life Aid, we are committed to close the gender inequality gap by promoting knowledge aquisition, life skills and skills and vocational trainings. Trainings are tools for achieving transformation . 

We basically run Purity Clubs were we train girls in what they most likely will never learn in the four walls of the classroom. 

Self Awareness

Decision Making

Interpersonal Relationships

Self Esteem

Conflict Resolution

Life skills are psychosocial and interpersonal skills that help people make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically ,be creative, manage their lives in a way that is both healthy and beneficial to themselves and others.

On August 15- 16th August, we took advantage of the holidays when students are not engaged with school work to organize a life skill booth camp for preteens and teens in the small town of Potiskum. Life skill is still new to a large number of the populace.

The training was a paid one. Obviously, people are so used to being handed down things for free. It was a challenge towing this path, but we took the bulls by the horn by going on with the training.

The topics covered are

1.  Managing my Emotions

The girls were trained to identify and name their emotions, understand and accept by taking responsibility without blaming others for their emotions. They also learnt empathy and how they can choose and manage how they feel at each time. Knowing what triggers which and what emotions. Their was role play and exercises.

2.  Knowing my body.

In this session, the class was broken into two so that age appropriate sex education could take place. They were taught how to take care of their body parts appropriately especially the private parts. Health seeking behaviors of reporting when something is wrong, accepting and loving their bodies, report when someone else touches them inappropriately , respect for other peoples space ,Bad touch/ good touch. There was questions and answers time. The girls were quite engaging.

3. Say "no" to drugs

This session presented the girls with a life story of a once drug addict and how he found help.

They were presented with the causes of drug addiction and the risk factors. And how to prevent it.

4. Peer Pressure.

The objective was to present the girls with the different categories of peer Pressure., So they can know which one affects them. The girls were taught that influence could be good and a great tool for bringing about change. They were taught to build good value systems so they could make positive impact as girls and young people and over come bad influences.

5.  Self Defense. 

This was introduced to the training using Karate as a sport, to help  them hone their leadership skills, for self defense from people who will want to prey on them, promote self discipline, confidence, health and character development. 

They learnt some basic skills on Karate. All the girls indicated interest for regular karate classes.

6. Boundary Setting.

This came up at the end of the training to enable participants  to apply what they have learnt without pressure from any one. This is to promote accountability and commitment to self growth.

7. Craft

Crafts promotes self discovery and hidden talents.

8 . Games

9.   Lunch.

We had five resource persons and four volunteers.

A  total of thirty three girls partispated.

We learnt through this particular training that the fee of two thousand naira was a big deal for people around here. Parents would rather pay high school fees their children to get good grades, but would want the children to aquire life skill for free. It shows that the importance of  life skills is not yet understood by these parents so we need to educate parents on it more than ever.

We will also need to collaborate with schools and Parent Teachers Associations of schools to see how Life Skills coaching will be intergrated into children's learning in future trainings.