The project aims to host astronomy camps for girls in six different locations of North and North West Nigeria, as these regions have the country’s worst performance in girl-child education. Figures from the Federal office of Statistics in Nigeria show that about 58% of northern women are illiterate. It is believed that gender inequality in northern Nigeria is fostered by religious and communal customs, which has grave consequences for both the individual and society, making a girl-child a dysfunctional member of society.
This innovative astronomy camp, the first of which was held in Abuja on April 28th, 2018, would give the children the first taste of space science and technology. Our target is to select for a camping exercise 100 girls from six secondary schools (or fewer) in three different states in each of these two regions. The girls will learn about STEM, particularly astronomy and a little bit of mathematics. This is more likely to increase the 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 for the end of the program at the site 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.