Mercy Corps renews support for 21,162 marginalised girls
Mercy Corps Nigeria has begun a second phase of a project to empower some 21.162 marginalised adolescent girls across four states with education and life skills. The project, Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises II (ENGINE II) is a three-year girls education programme funded by the UK Department for International Development through a fund for […]
Mercy Corps Nigeria has begun a second phase of a project to empower some 21.162 marginalised adolescent girls across four states with education and life skills.
The project, Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises II (ENGINE II) is a three-year girls education programme funded by the UK Department for International Development through a fund for Girls Education Challenge.
Mercy Corps country director Darius Radcliffe said the project fits into Nigeria’s micro- and macro-economic plans to “meet the sustainable development goals.”
“The themes education, adolescent girls and vocational skills are global benchmarks for economic growth and educating girls is smart economics,” he said at the project’s national launch in Abuja on Wednesday.
Girls considered marginalized were recruited into the first phase of the ENGINE project by school and community heads in target states of the FCT, Kano, Kaduna and Lagos.
The focus was on girls who were orphaned, lived in single-head households, were divorced or widowed, pregnant, married off before age 18 or never attended school.
ENGINE II will follow the same 21,162 girls to ensure they transit to the next step of their growth cycle, complete their education or enter the workforce, and enabling out-of-school girls a second opportunity to return to formal schooling.
“Girls are excluded from most processes of development; they hardly get a second chance,” said Amina Salihu, of MacArthur Foundation. “To reverse this, we must look at things through a different lens.”
In a keynote address, she called for inclusive development to be about investing in people instead of physical structures.
‘There’s a very steep slope women and girls have to negotiate every day just to get the basics, just because they are women.”
“We can’t ignore 50% of our population and continue to hope to be amongst the world’s greatest nations any time soon. We might as well forget it.”
Salihu noted that investing in girls and women now would increase productivity at present and improve health and sustainable growth for future generations.
She highlighted a shift in stereotypes that limit girls and women by norms.
“Colours express differences. For girls, there should be many. Pink is never the only colour for girls. The colour for girls is the rainbow. Plant colours of hope in the heart and head of a girl by opening up opportunities and letting her grow,” said Salihu.