The Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), a non profit organization in partnership with Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs jave initiated Grannies Network for Change (G-NEC) to mitigate the menace of Gender Based Violence (GBV).

The network was initiated after a disturbing outcome of research that indicated increasing rate of GBV in Kano and Jigawa state, and frantic effort to finding alternative solution based approach to address the vices.

The initiative designed to mobilize grandmothers in Kano and Jigawa to lead an advocacy campaign across social and physical platforms to kick against and prevent the growing cases of rape, sexual abuse and other forms of violence against female gender.

The GNEC project quoted the NDHS 2025 economic rights indices at 22% at the national level, and 40% and 42% in Kano and Jigawa states, respectively, indicating a high prevalence of restrictions on women’s ability to work outside the home.

Addressing the network at the Ministry of Women Affairs, dRPC Program Associate, Saadatu Tijjani explained that the grandmothers are specifically engaged for the advocacy considering their influence on young mothers and women in the society.

She explained that the goal of GNEC is to, among other things, support three new low-level leadership groups within traditional society grandmothers and local-level village heads and village Imams as male allies who have been neglected in past GBV projects, to become champions.

” We are concerned with economic rights denial leading to poor girls’ education and school drop out, which exacerbates early marriages, leading to increased gender based violence in Kano and Jigawa States.

“GNEC will be an intergenerational intervention project where youth will be engaged and educated on the salient issues around GBV prevention, especially economic denials and girls education.

“The New GNEC Project also aims to strengthen the capacities of grandmothers at the state and local levels to influence the behavioural change of husbands within households in order for wives to have economic rights and for girl children to attend school”. She said.

The Kano State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Amina Sani, said the project focuses on grandmothers because they serve as the primary “custodians of culture and moral values” within our communities.

The Commissioner explained that the project’s strategy is grounded in groundbreaking research by the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC).

She said the research revealed that within multigenerational households, grandmothers are the most influential arbiters of gender norms and practices, significantly affecting the lives of both wives and daughters.

She added that grandmothers command deep respect within our communities and are well-positioned to play an authoritative role in preventing gender-based violence.

Describing the initiative as a “pioneering effort,” the Commissioner stated that the intervention is specifically designed to align with Northern Nigeria’s social structures, where elders are traditionally revered for their wisdom.

“The project is indeed unique and a pioneering effort of its kind. It’s a household-centred and community-level intervention anchored in the realities of our tradition and social structures, where elders are revered for their wisdom,” she added.

In the first year of the New GNEC Project,  the project will identify and work in 6 villages in Kano State, and 4 in Jigawa State, where husbands are known for not supporting their wives economically, and wives are forced to be breadwinners, and also communities where husbands are not supportive of their daughters’ education.

The project will also target grandmothers through radio programs to support them with new information, enabling them to use their influential role so that they shape their sons’ commitment to the economics of the family and their daughters’ education.