As we mark United Nations International Day of the Girl Child under this year’s theme, End Child Marriage and Invest in Girls’ Rights!, I remain steadfast in my commitment to ensuring that every girl is equipped with the knowledge, dignity and opportunity to shape her own future.

It was my great pleasure to accompany my Wellbeing Foundation Africa team to Amuwo Junior and Senior Grammar School, Lagos, on 8 October for “Her Health, Dignity, and Future: Investing in Girls Through Menstrual Health and Hygiene,” convened with our esteemed partner Hayat Kimya and longstanding social impact partner Reckitt. The girls were offered a safe space to understand their bodies, confront menstrual stigma and recognise their rights to health, education and a childhood free from early marriage, and Molped sanitary napkins were distributed so that no girl need forgo a day of learning because of her period.

A particular highlight was our Spelling Bee, an interactive exercise through which the girls spelled and defined the vocabulary of women’s health, female physiology, puberty and hygiene, advancing their foundational learning while deepening their understanding of their own wellbeing. Embedding health education within literacy development in this way supports stronger learning outcomes and school retention for adolescent girls, and builds upon my longstanding educational programming, including the Scrabble competitions conducted in 2005 in Ilorin for secondary school students.

UNICEF estimates that one in five girls worldwide is married before the age of 18, and more than 24 million women in Nigeria were married in childhood. Every additional year a girl remains in school lowers that risk, which is why, through WBFA’s Adolescent Skills and Drills, Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programming, we continue to translate these commitments into practical knowledge and lifelong skills.

Every girl deserves to understand her body, exercise her rights, pursue her ambitions and determine her own future.

 

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