By Mohammed Nasir Shuaibu (Bauchi State Correspondent)
The Development Initiative for West Africa (DIWA) has trained 50 Islamic women groups on strategies to detect and handle traces of violent extremism among children and youths in Bauchi State.
The training, jointly implemented by Da'wah Institute of Nigeria, brought together women from different Islamic sects for six days.
Speaking at the event, the Head of Research Da'wah Institute of Nigeria, Abdulmalik Abu-Sufyan, said the training, which is a continuation of its 'step down' training, adopts a multi-lingual approach to appropriately get the message across to the representatives of the various Islamic women groups.
He said since the wake of Boko Haram insurgency, there is the need to empower mother's with requisite skills to counter extremist ideologies among children because of their role and power at shaping and moulding behaving of their kids.
"The women trained here are expected to go back to their communities and clans and empower other women with same skills that there given to them at this training.
"The main focus of the training is the prevention of violent extremism from spreading among the youths. Therefore, the training was designed to be a vaccine to the people of Bauchi against violent extremism.
"Those who attended this training would be able to counter violent extremism and also provide alternative views with cogent reasons to convince people on the best thing to say and best action to take," he said.
On her part, the leader of Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN) Bauchi State chapter, Habiba Sa'ad Usman, said the training is apt and timely, arguing that women are at the receiving end of violent extremist activities as in the case of Boko Haram.
"We discuss issues that relate to the fact that violent extremism is timely because it mostly affects women. Those that are effected in the Boko Haram insurgency are mostly women and children.
She said poverty complicate counter-extremism narratives as most youths recruited into such vanguard are jobless and are into drugs. NNL.
