The Magazine of The Sierra Club
All in a Day’s Work: Nigeria’s Center for Girls' Education in Photos
CGE helps educate impoverished girls, building resilience in their communities
Photos by Etinosa Yvonne
Three participants stand outside CGE’s Montessori preschool.
Fawole Iretioluwa, the team lead for CGE's Montessori preschool program.
A CGE mentor helps a preschooler learn her letters.
A preschooler and a mentor play with a doll.
CGE also offers some vocational training. Here young women learn to make household disinfectant to sell.
A safe space in the community of Wuciciri.
Maimuna Saleh, a participant in the vocational training, and her mother in their home in Zaria.
Maryam Albashir, a team lead for the Transitions Out of School program, which helps girls who are not in school transition back in.
Mallam Ahmed Aliyu, the sarki (chief) of Wuciciri. CGE relies on the support of community leaders like him.
CGE director Habiba Mohammed at a National Children’s Day celebration in Zaria.
A participant of a safe space in the community of Marwa.
The cover story of Sierra’s November/December issue, "Educating Girls May Be Nigeria's Best Defense Against Climate Change," reports on the Center for Girls' Education, a female-led organization in northern Nigeria that works to educate girls from poor families by setting up safe spaces where they receive mentoring on literacy, numeracy, and life skills. Founded as a joint program of the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley and the Population and Reproductive Health Initiative at Ahmadu Bello University and now operating as an independent nonprofit, the center manages seven different projects, including most recently a Montessori preschool. Staff members don’t tend to think of their work in the context of climate change, but a large body of research suggests that their efforts to educate girls increase their resilience in the face of its impacts, as well as that of their families and communities.