By Kehinde Aderemi
In the past two years, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has significantly expanded its initiatives focusing on children’s development and welfare as well as those of the youth.
One of the primary goals of these initiatives is to cultivate a strong sense of national pride and identity, as well as to promote a culture that protects the children’s rights to education, health and shields them from exploitation.
Recognizing the importance of legal identity, the agency partnered with the National Population Commission (NPC) and UNICEF to launch a nationwide digital birth registration campaign. This initiative aims to register children aged 0 to 5 and provide them with a National Identification Number (NIN), which is crucial for accessing healthcare, education, and social services. This is expected to result in improved child data tracking, access to education, and inclusion in national development policies.
The campaign highlights that birth registration is the first legal recognition of a child’s existence and is crucial for protecting their rights and privileges. In Lagos State, 141 registration centres have been established across all 20 councils and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to make this process easier.
In Niger State, the initiative aimed to register around 395,382 children. The registration process was digitised, and ad hoc staff was recruited to carry out the exercise across various local government areas. Traditional leaders were involved to help mobilise communities, highlighting the significance of birth registration for national planning and development.
To tackle the ongoing problem of child labour and exploitation, the NOA has partnered with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as part of the ACCEL Africa project, which aims to accelerate efforts to eliminate child labour across Africa.
This initiative aims to eliminate child labour in the artisanal gold mining and cocoa farming sectors, specifically in Ondo, Osun, and Niger states. The NOA is equally dedicated to implementing grassroots programmes designed to raise awareness among stakeholders and bring about behavioural change within the targeted communities. The agency also plans to promote public awareness programmes about child labour as part of its general public enlightenment mandate.
The collaboration with ACCEL Africa focuses on grassroots sensitisation, community engagement, and enforcement of child protection laws. This has seen NOA officers facilitate town hall meetings, distribute awareness materials, and work with traditional leaders to discourage child exploitation.
Also in the area of child rights, the NOA has collaborated with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the inclusion of child rights education in its national reorientation campaigns.
In furtherance of the objective, both agencies have held workshops and radio programmes to educate children and caregivers on issues like abuse, trafficking, and legal protection. Both also work together to monitor rights violations and escalate cases to appropriate authorities.
To foster a strong sense of morality among Nigerian youths, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has established 37,000 Citizens Brigades across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The initiative began with 1,000 units in primary schools, with the goal of instilling positive leadership values and nurturing responsible citizens. This effort is part of NOA’s broader mission to bring about positive change in society by promoting national values among the youth. The brigades serve as extracurricular clubs, teaching pupils about national values, leadership, and discipline.
NOA also worked with curriculum developers to introduce Citizenship Studies as a mandatory subject from primary through tertiary levels.
A crucial element of the initiative to build a strong national identity is the nationalisation of cartoon content. Consumption of foreign cartoon content, the agency believes, leads to children who are more foreign than Nigerian. That is a clear hint of familiarity with the influence of media on children’s development.
To address this all too prevalent situation, the NOA launched a high-quality animated cartoon competition specifically for Nigerian children not older than 12 years. The agency is promoting cartoons that reflect the country’s heritage and lifestyle to gradually replace foreign media influence with culturally relevant programming.
This, the agency expects, will build cultural consciousness and Nigerian personality from the earliest ages; build socio-moral competence, competence in indigenous languages/mores and significantly reduce exposure to unruly conduct, bad language, anti-social conduct in foreign cartoons.
By encouraging local content creation, the NOA seeks to instil the spirit of “Nigerianness” in children through engaging and culturally relevant animations.
In collaboration with UNICEF, the NOA has also created a pathway for the enhancement of learning for young persons through digital platforms. These are seen through initiatives such as the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP), an online, offline, and mobile digital learning platform, that supports learning and skills acquisition for children and youths. Other platforms, such as the Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA) and U-report, connect young people to opportunities for employment, entrepreneurship, and social impact. NOA encourages youths to explore these digital platforms productively, emphasizing their potential for legitimate income and personal development.
Part of the efforts to address health challenges among children has seen the NOA partner with The Straight Child Foundation (TSCF) in Abia State to sensitise the public about clubfoot, a treatable deformity marked by an infant’s foot being turned inward so severely that the bottom of the foot faces sideways or even upward. The campaign educated communities on early detection and treatment options, highlighting the fact that untreated clubfoot can lead to disability. The agency tasked its grassroots officers with going door-to-door and using local media to inform families about free treatment options. The initiative targeted rural and low-income communities where early detection rates were low.