Oando Foundation has restated its commitment to educational empowerment of girls in the country. This is as the Foundation said it has enrolled 31,867 girls back to formal school, in collaboration with relevant state agencies and School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs); providing them with the necessary support to sustain their educational pursuits.

Through its Adopt-a-School Initiative, Oando Foundation has taken bold steps to get girls back into classrooms, especially in Northern Nigeria, providing scholarships to outstanding young girls in their adopted schools, building WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) facilities to ensure a healthy learning environment, offering mentorship opportunities, training female teachers and sensitising community gatekeepers to inspire confidence, hope and support.

In commemoration of this year’s International Day of the Girl Child, Oando Foundation joined the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Federal Ministry of Education (FME), and other development partners at the two-day International Conference on Girl Child Education, aimed at addressing key issues of education access and quality most critical to the girl child in Nigeria.

Speaking during the event, the programmes manager at Oando Foundation, Tonia Uduimoh, highlighted the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to promote girl child education. He emphasised the need to enhance education financing, accountability mechanisms to help monitor progress and sharing of best practices among stakeholders to scale impact.

Also moderating a high-level panel on ‘Girl Child Education Intervention Strategies: National and Subnational Partnership for Quality and Inclusive Skills Development in the States’, Uduimoh, alongside Commissioners of Education from Enugu, Edo, Bauchi and Rivers States examined effective strategies to enhance girl child education in Nigeria, identifying key challenges, and proffering state-level as well as partner-led programs bridging the inclusivity gap.

In line with this year’s International Day of the Girl Child, themed ‘Girls’ Vision for the Future’, the Oando Foundation continues to champion initiatives that empower girls and create pathways for their success.

Through sustained advocacy and targeted interventions, the Foundation is committed to breaking the cycles of inequality, exclusion, and stereotypes, thus enabling girls to envision and achieve brighter futures.