By Christabel DANSO ABEAM
Junior Achievement (JA) Africa, in partnership with Delta Air Lines, has launched the ’10 million African Girls’ (10MAG) campaign to inspire young girls across Africa.
This project aims at equipping ten million girls across Africa with entrepreneurship, leadership and advocacy skills to build thriving and sustainable communities, eliminate poverty and reduce gender-based violence in the sub-Saharan Africa.
10MAG campaign is also a call to action for government, corporations, foundations, civil society organisations serving girls, and individuals across Africa to help improve access to better quality education and economic participation opportunity for girls and young women in marginalised communities.
The campaign will address pressing issues such as high rate of child marriage and adolescent births faced by young women in Africa. Reports indicate that in West and Central Africa, only 33 percent of girls complete high school; and one in seven girls and in some cases three in ten girls are married before the age of 14. Young girls lucky enough to finish their education and launch businesses have tougher time getting access to finance required to grow their businesses – only 2 percent of venture capital funding in Africa went to women-led start-ups in 2024.
In an interview with Simi Nwogugu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – JA Africa, highlighted the importance of girl-child education, saying: “Africa cannot achieve its full potential if half of its youth population is denied access to quality education and economic participation opportunities”.
She added that building their capacity goes a long way to build a social safety nets for young girls coming behind them.
Simi further called on all stakeholders – including Non-Governmental Organisations, corporations and government – to join push the agender and also support them in any way possible,
Ronke Adebiyi, Director – International Government Affairs and Policy – Delta Air Lines, also underscored the importance of girl-child protection and education, indicating that it goes a long way to affecting the economy of the countries they find themselves in.
As sponsors, Ronke said that in order to be able to extend the 10MAG campaign to get more lives of young girls affected, Delta Air Line has extended their sponsorship to US$250,000 for next year’s event.
“This will allow us more access to grow the camp of young girls and the type of activities and programming that could be done with the JA African project”.
The campaign launch coincided with the graduation ceremony of fifty-two girls from seven countries – Eswatini, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – participating in the Leadership, Empowerment, Achievement and Development (LEAD) Camp in Accra.
The LEAD Camp is a week-long programme that empowers high-achieving girls to become leaders in their communities and countries. The camp, sponsored by Delta Air Lines, featured female volunteers from the airline and accomplished women from various industries who serve as role models to the girls.
