The project aims to host astronomy camps for girls in 6 different locations in North West and North Central regions of Nigeria, because Northern Nigeria have the country’s worst girl-child education. Figures from the Federal office of Statistics in Nigeria shows that, only about 20% of the total number of literate women in Nigeria are from the North. In fact, about 58% of Northern women are illiterates. It is believed that gender inequality in Northern Nigeria is promoted by religious and communal customs, which has grave consequences for both the individual and the society, making a girl-child dysfunctional member of the society. This innovative astronomy camp, the first of which held in Abuja on April 28th, 2018, would give the children the first taste of space science and technology. Our target is to select 100 girls each from 6 Secondary schools(or less) in three different states in each of these 2 regions, for a camping exercise. The girls will learn about STEM, particularly astronomy and a little bit of mathematics. This is more likely to increase children’s interest in space research and space-based technology. We will run through presentations, hands on activities and exercises between 12:00 and 20:00. Parents would have the options of either waiting through the program or dropping the kids and returning later for a pick up. Speakers from various fields in STEM and especially Astronomy would be present to give talks on interesting topics. https://youtu.be/tsMG7CKlBb
