At workshop with education stakeholders: Wellness Awareness Centre CEO says society risking big if school violence unchecked.

This was during a workshop her organisation organised to discuss on the issue of violence in the school milieu and how such can be prevented, mitigated or managed. 

Wellness Awareness Centre organised the workshop in partnership with the North West Regional Delegation of Secondary Education. 

The initiative supported by the North West Regional Assembly is being implemented in collaboration with the Fundong Council.

The workshop on violence prevention, mitigation and management in secondary schools was organised under the theme: “Adequate awareness and collective effort; the ultimate solution to school violence”.

It had as objective to contribute in raising non-violent future generations. It is within the framework of a Violent-Free School Program which the organisation is implementing in the North West Region.

Initiator situates importance of workshop 

In her remarks at the opening of the two-day workshop, which brought together secondary education stakeholders, the founder of the non-government, said a violence-free school environment is susceptible to helping learners perform better.

According to the Matilda Niguin, violence in schools which was seldom heard of in the years past, has recently become rampant in the last six years. 

Violence within the school milieu, she said, “is not only claiming lives but subjecting the whole education family to untold psycho-emotional pain and frustrating careers”.

Niguin added that “the ultimate solution to violence in schools is adequate awareness and collective effort”.

She, however, saluted the fact that little has been heard about violence in schools in Fundong Subdivision and Boyo as a whole, adding that this is largely attributed to diligence and some level of awareness.

She said there was need to create more awareness in order to prevent occurrence of violence within the school milieu.

“We want to create awareness on the prevalence of different forms of violence in the society because we strongly believe that most of the world’s problems stem from violence and violence is stems from our inability to manage negative emotions and frustrations,” Niguin said. 

Participants during the workshop upgraded their knowledge on the different forms and types of violence in the school milieu and how it affects output.

They were also schooled on violence prevention, mental health, peacebuilding and economic empowerment. The stakeholders also brainstormed on sustainable solutions to violence in schools

Apart from the session with the education stakeholders and local authorities, the organisation took the campaign to some schools.

The Matilda Niguin-led team made stopovers at Government Bilingual High School and Government Technical High School Fundong where interactive educative talks on the different types of violence and their effects was organised with the students.

There was also a debate on whether poor governance is to be blamed for the prevalence of violence in the school milieu. 

According to Niguin, there is need for the youth and more particularly students to understand the dangers of indulging in violence and why they should learn strategies to refrain from violence.

SDO, Fundong mayor salute initiative

The campaign to have a violence-free school environment undertaken by Wellness Awareness Centre was highly lauded by the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, of Boyo, Saidou Moussa, and the Mayor of Fundong, Denis Awoh Ndang.

The SDO made a special appeal to teachers, urging them to be more tactful in the way they treat students in order to provoke violent situations.

On his part, Mayor Ndang said, if such initiatives will help address even bigger conflicts at community and national level.

“We are talking about violence within the school milieu but with the present crisis [armed conflict], we risk having more violence after this. But if we are able to solve what I consider as little violence at the level of schools, we can overcome it at the level of our communities,” he said.