The Centre for Girls’ Education, Zaria, Kaduna State, has empowered over 200,000 vulnerable girls with skills and set out to venture into free Artificial Intelligence (AI) training to enable the beneficiaries to harness their potential.

The Director of CGE, Hajiya Habiba Mohammed, made this known in an interview on Thursday in Zaria.

Mr Mohammed said that the centre had positively touched the lives of over 200,000 girls in its project, including Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Kebbi and Borno States.

She added that the centre was also working to venture into AI training for its girls; the centre attended a programme at Qatar and planning had reached an advanced stage on how to integrate its beneficiaries into AI.

“We are targeting many beneficiaries of the project from our project states for the AI we are also seeking additional support from donor agencies on this initiative,’’ she added.

She noted that over 6,000 married adolescent girls benefitted under the MASS project, adding that many of them were on the verge of taking the senior secondary school examinations this year.

“The MASS project beneficiaries were supported with training on life and vocational skills to enable them to make decisions on whether to go back to school or continue with the skills they acquired from the centre.

“We believe that a scholarship from the government to them (adolescent married girls) can help them to re-write their narratives and be what they want to be even after the early marriage,’’ she said.

Mr Mohammed said beside the MASS project, the centre’s pre-school space had reached over 4,000 pupils, aged between four and six years, and prepared them for formal education.

She added that the centre had also trained over 2,000 students under its Girls for Education and Health Project which targets female pupils of senior secondary schools.

“Under the G4E&H project, the beneficiaries were groomed by the centre to enable them to obtain entry requirements for the study of health and science related courses in tertiary institutions. The main objective of the G4E & H project is to address the dearth of human resources for health and science teachers in the country,’’ the director said.

Mr Mohammed said the centre was also working in collaboration with the Kaduna State Ministry of Business Innovation, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Vocational Centre of Islamic Trust of Nigeria, to support girls to learn skills in ICT and other vocations.

She, therefore, restated the commitment of the centre to work closely with its partners towards ensuring more vulnerable girls were reached.

In 2024, the major goal of the centre was to work with the government and ensure that the centre’s safe spaces were institutionalised into schools.

This, she said, would enable the beneficiaries of the initiatives to have a skill; our belief was that when these girls had life skills they would stay in school and focus on where they want to be tomorrow.

(NAN)