New France-Africa Summit: A New Beginning, A New Partnership

From Paris to Montpellier, France, it was a week of activities from October 4th to October 10th for our Founder/CEO, Marvella Odili, who was invited by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the French Embassy, Nigeria to participate in 3 major events: Ambition Africa, The Bpifrance Inno Génération (BIG) and The New Africa-France Summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron.

Entrepreneurs, artists, creators, researchers, captains of industry, technocrats, innovators, students, sports personalities and NGOs from France and all over Africa came together under one platform to brainstorm, share ideas and collaborate on the New France-Africa partnership where civil society will take centre stage.

For President Emmanuel Macron, France must assume its fair share of "Africanness" noting that nearly 7 million French people are intimately linked to Africa.

He reiterated France's pledge to return artworks that were looted from the Abomey Palace in Benin at the end of the 19th century.

During this working visit to France, Marvella talked about her work on the empowerment of marginalized women and the education of marginalized girls to people from all walks of life.

She was fortunate to meet the incoming France Ambassador to Nigeria who was gracious enough to take pictures with her.

It was also a time to rediscover Paris and discover Montpellier.

Suffice it to say, it was truly a great learning and exchange experience; an unforgettable one.

Marvella Odili Wins "1000 Entrepreneurs Challenge "

We are proud to announce our Founder/CEO, Marvella Odili, as one of the winners of the "1000 Entrepreneurs Challenge" for her project, "Connecting Marginalized Women To Technology and Development."

Marvella Odili 

Over the years, Marvella has economically empowered thousands of marginalized women and youths through skills-building; launched projects for the education of thousands of vulnerable children particularly girls; and advanced the rights of women and girls, through her non-profit organization,  Save Our Needy Organisation. 

As a part of the winning package, all winners were invited to the Africa-France Summit 2020 which was due to start on June 4, 2020 in Bordeaux, France. However, due to the present circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic, all scheduled travels have been cancelled. 

All the winners who were selected from 53 countries in Africa, will have the opportunity to gain extensive knowledge from experts, network, gain visibility for their work and public and private funding from French and African partners of Digital Africa. 

See list of full winners here:

https://digital-africa.co/en/winners-1000/😀🥳

African Children Are The Future of Africa

As we celebrate the International Day of the African Child today, we reflect on the many issues affecting the African child including violence, poverty, illiteracy, neglect, and abuse. No child can thrive in an environment where there is a lack of love, peace and happiness. It is our collective responsibility to provide an enabling environment that is peaceful, vibrant, and healthy for ALL children irrespective of social background, ethnicity, physical ability, and religion to reach their full potential.
 

The African child is the future of Africa. We have to protect their rights. 

Happy International Day of the African Child!

Save Our Needy Celebrates First International Education Day.

Save Our Needy joined the rest of the world yesterday to celebrate the very first International Education Day. The theme of this day was “Education for Peace and Development”.

Education is a key driver of social change and economic growth, and its importance for achieving gender equality has been widely recognized. It has always been an important element for the development of an individual. It broadens the horizon of one’s mind. Education is one of the most powerful tools we can implement in our global efforts to promote world peace and security.

Education offers people a ladder out of poverty and a path to a promising future. Sadly, about 265 million children and adolescents around the world still do not have the opportunity to enter or complete school. More than a fifth of them are of primary school age.

Nigeria has a high rate of illiteracy. At least 40% of the population, that is about 75 million people cannot read or write a simple sentence. Of this population, the majority of them are women. Forty per cent of Nigerian children aged 6-11 do not attend any primary school with the Northern region recording the lowest school attendance rate in the country, particularly for girls. Despite a significant increase in net enrollment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school.

Empowering girls to become self-reliant

 

The education sector in Nigeria today, particularly in Northern Nigeria, faces a lot of challenges including a lack of skilled teachers, poor infrastructure, lack of learning equipment and unconducive environment for learning.

Another challenge in Nigeria is the issue of girls’ education. Among the critical challenges that impede girls’ education are poverty, conflict and violence, early marriages, harmful traditional practices, long distances to school, religious beliefs and inadequate menstrual hygiene.

Save Our Needy works to advance equal access to quality education for all.

"Education is more than a right, education is a remedy. In a world gripped by crises, education can be a pathway to growth and a stepping stone toward peace."- Rania Al Abdullah

Happy #EducationDay

Tech Girls Gets Nominated for World Summit On The Information Society Prizes 2019.

Tech Girls, a project designed to empower marginalized and vulnerable adolescent girls with ICT and digital skills, encourage girls to enroll in STEM subjects as well as provide them with mentorship support, has been nominated for the World Summit On The Information Society (WSIS) Prizes 2019.

The project initiated by Save Our Needy, has empowered more than 250 girls in Nigeria since 2017 to date.

WSIS Prizes is a unique international contest developed to create an effective mechanism to evaluate and recognize individuals, governments, civil society, local, regional and international agencies, research institutions and private-sector companies for outstanding success in implementing development oriented strategies that leverage the power of ICTs as an enabler of development.  

The WSIS Prizes contest serves as the platform for identifying and showcasing the success stories across the WSIS Action Lines defined in the Geneva Plan of Action and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also provides us with models that can be replicated in the interests of empowering the community at the local level, providing everyone with an opportunity to participate in the contest and, most importantly, recognizing the efforts made by stakeholders to contribute to the development of society and their commitment to achievement of both the WSIS goals and SDGs.

Please we need your vote for Tech Girls to be selected among the winning projects.

Steps To Vote:

1. Go to the following link: https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/stocktaking/Prizes/2019/Vote

2. Register as a new user

3. Log in to your account

 4. Go to Vote and then click on “Voting Form”

5. Vote in each of 18 categories (only then is your vote valid!) That means you start by voting in category AL C1. 

Tech Girls has been nominated in the category 3 - AL C3. 

Kindly note that there is another Tech-Girls, a project in Charlottesville, USA and another Tech Girls Advocacy Program in other categories. PLEASE kindly ensure that you vote for Tech Girls, a project in Nigeria CATEGORY 3- AL C3.

Together, we can empower more girls with technology and digital skills in Nigeria!

THANK YOU!

#WSIS  #ICT4SDG