Scholars from Bayero University Kano (BUK) – Centre for Islamic Civilisation and Interfaith Dialogue, (CICID); and Centre for Gender Studies gathered at the Conference Hall of CICID for a 2-day training workshop on Mentoring and Monitoring of Muslim Opinion Leaders for the prevention of Gender Based Violence (GBV). The 2-day workshop was designed and run by the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) under the Muslim Opinion Leaders for the Prevention of GBV project supported by the Ford Foundation.

The workshops saw Muslim Opinion Leaders from previous dRPC programs share best practices and impact stories of how they were prompted to take action and address challenges faced by women and children through the dRPC’s model of peer-to-peer mentoring.

Professor Mashi of Ummaru Musa Yar’adua University, pictured above, discussed his experience as a participant in the dRPC’s Grand Challenge Canada (GCC) Saving Lives at Birth project, which addressed health worker hesitancy and bias against routine immunisation in Katsina State. Professor Mashi noted that the project laid the foundation for routine immunisation uptake and success in the state.

In his paper titled –  Impact of Muslim Opinion Leaders in Promoting Attitudinal Change in Healthcare Delivery, Mashi noted that the state had faced challenges in healthcare workers’ attitudes toward healthcare delivery in general and on RI in particular prior to the project. He went on to say that the Saving Lives at Birth intervention significantly reduced child mortality in the state by supporting Muslim scholars to attend peer-to-peer learning tours in Egypt where they were taught how to engage front line health workers, and how to train them on topics such as the Islamic perspective on child health and the responsibilities of child health providers.

He added that ” Our post evaluation of the GCC SLaB programme showed healthcare workers’ attitudes toward routine immunisation have improved by over 85%, and this impacted the quality of the service delivered and community response to routine immunisation,” Mashi went on to explain that even though the dRPC’s GCC funded project closed out in November 2016, “we recorded tremendous successes that led to a solid foundation for healthcare delivery in the state.”

For the BUK team collaborating with the dRPC on this new generation MOLs project targeting 24 Muslim influencers across 5 states for GBV prevention, reflections from Professor Mashi and others on the panel offered opportunities to learn, understand and appreciate the impact of the dRPC’s model of peer-to-peer mentoring.