Programs
Ci Gaba (Moving Ahead) Montessori baseD-Preschool Spaces
CGE has adapted the Montessori approach to the needs of girls from the most vulnerable families in the communities we serve. These girls are rarely enrolled in school. The purpose of the program is to dramatically increase their rates of school enrolment, retention, and graduation. The girls learn from working with educational materials made locally out of natural, aesthetic materials rather than by direct instruction. We are finding the concreteness of the Montessori method to be ideal for the rural girls we work with. CGE’s former participants—who began with CGE at the age of 12 and who have now advanced to the Federal Teachers’ College—serve as the preschool mentors.
In a randomized control trial led by Sharon Wolf at the University of Pennsylvania, the girls in communities assigned to the Ci Gaba program scored an average of 73% on the early childhood assessment, whereas girls in the control group scored an average of 37%. These effects persisted across all areas of school readiness. Interviews with the first cohort's primary school teachers found that 90% of the girls are performing at the top of their class in primary school. Of the 255 girls enrolled in Ci Gaba's first cohort, 248 transitioned to primary school. Only 11 of the 169 girls in the control communities made the transition. To date, Ci Gaba has served 4000 girls.
Pathways to Choice for out-of-school girls.
The Pathways program prepares girls who are not in school to enroll in government education at an age-appropriate grade. The first 9 months focuses on accelerated learning implemented in safe spaces (focusing on life skills, financial literacy, and business skills) and learning spaces (focusing on literacy and numeracy). The safe spaces and learning spaces employ activity-based pedagogic methods, with the mentors determining the speed at which they present the curriculum based on their ongoing assessment of students. After the 9 months, the participants enroll in school and receive a further year of mentoring/tutoring in safe spaces. Those who are unable or uninterested in enrolling in school are offered a yearlong apprenticeship in one of CGE's vocational shops.
The effects of Pathways on adolescent girls were measured in a cluster randomized control trial in eighteen paired communities with a total sample of 1,171 girls from 2018 to 2020. The analysis, done by Isabelle Cohen of the University of Washington, found that Pathways leads to an 82% decrease in the likelihood that girls are married two and a half years after the intervention starts; marriage rates declined from 86% in the control group to only 20% in the intervention group. Girls in intervention communities were also nearly eight times as likely to be enrolled in school. Pathways also significantly increases measures of gender equitable beliefs, and indices of self-advocacy and self-perceptions. In addition, the program doubles the likelihood that the participants' younger sisters were currently attending school.
Apprenticeship-based vocational training
The program promotes girls' economic autonomy through literacy and numeracy, vocational training, and leadership opportunities. Each girl receives 6 months of accelerated instruction in literacy, numeracy, and financial capacity building in mentored safe spaces and then begins a yearlong apprenticeship in a trade of her choice including phone repair, animal husbandry, peanut oil extraction, poultry farming, shoe making, and tailoring. After a year of apprenticeship, the participants take on increasing responsibility, including training subsequent cohorts of apprentices. They also have the option to enroll in school. After two years many of the microbusinesses are nearing financial self-sufficiency and are becoming training cooperatives.
Married Adolescent Safe Spaces
The Married Adolescent Safe Spaces program is designed to reach married adolescent girls with information on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), family planning choices, Gender Based Violence (GBV), life skills, vocational skills, and basic literacy. The project aims to prepare married adolescent girls to take control of their lives through family planning and to move out of the cycle of poverty in rural communities surrounding Zaria, Kaduna State. The project has reached out to 7,980 married adolescent girls ages 14 – 19 years from five local government areas. A randomized control trial, led by Isabelle Cohen at the University of Washington, found that the participants in the intervention communities were 40% less likely to have become pregnant after one year and 64% less likely to have experienced any form of intimate partner violence.
EmpowerHer Education Advocacy Program
The "EmpowerHer Education" project is funded by Co-Impact and the Malala Fund and is dedicated to ensuring 12 years of free and compulsory education for all girls in Kaduna State.
Our advocacy objectives:
Establish Safe Spaces in Primary Schools across Kaduna State, conducted after regular classes, led by trained female teachers proficient in student-centred learning, accelerated literacy acquisition, math instruction, and gender equity principles.
Full implementation of policies ensuring 12 years of free and compulsory education for girls in Kaduna State.
Codification into law of the 12 years of free and compulsory education in Kaduna state.
Cascading Mentors
Learning outcomes in rural schools can be so poor that many children graduate without even learning to read and write. Parents question whether the investment in school, and associated opportunity costs, are worth the sacrifices involved in educating their daughters. This leaves adolescent girls with few career choices outside of marriage and childbearing.
The present cohort of cascading mentors caters for 228 girls who have participated in one of CGE's safe space programs, are out of school, and are unable to obtain the minimum scores in the secondary school completion exams and university entrance exams that will aid them to secure admission into tertiary institution. The intensive group tutoring is led by talented teachers chosen by CGE. The girls also apprentice with senior CGE mentors and teachers in public schools to learn more about the teaching profession and therefore decide whether it is a good career choice for them.
Girls for Education and Health
Girls for Education and Health promotes the economic empowerment, agency and voice of 1,100 rural adolescent girls by supporting their transition from secondary school to tertiary institutions, and in so doing, increases their access to paid employment in a range of fields. The program also improves rural government schools by increasing the capacity of female teachers. The long-term impact of this program includes an increase in science teachers and health workers leading to improved access to healthcare in rural Nigeria, particularly community health workers and midwifery care, provided by women who are from the communities they are serving and therefore deeply familiar with the needs and culture of those they serve.
Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) A Program for In-School Girls (Ages 12 to 14)
AGI complements government schooling by improving girls’ core academic performance and providing opportunities for them to build trusting relationships and acquire critical life skills not currently offered in primary education. Our program is designed to support girls as they progress from primary to junior secondary school and from junior secondary to senior secondary—critical times for school withdrawal and marriage. The core components are community engagement, mentored tutoring in safe spaces, and the training of female teachers as mentors. Communities participating in this program have seen girls’ secondary school graduation increase twenty-fold and the age of marriage increase by two and a half years.
Adolescent Girls’ Education Program (AGILE)
CGE is the implementor of the AGILE safe spaces for girls in Kaduna and Katsina States funded by the World Bank. The life skill strengthening and advocacy address social norms impeding girls’ education.