By Modupe Gbadeyanka
To tackle global climate change, a non-profit organisation that focuses on girl-child education, Evolve, has decided to provide quality education for 50,000 female students across Nigeria.
This would be achieved through the support of its lead partner, Polaris Bank, which plans to adopt several schools across the country to cater for the needs of the girl child.
The Evolve programme, which was launched in 2020 to address the global challenge of climate change through the education of underprivileged girls, is designed to impact over 50,000 direct beneficiaries and 200,000 indirect beneficiaries in the next five years.
Speaking on the impact of the project, the Managing Director of Pacegate Limited, Mr Umesh Amarnani, said, “The Evolve CSR program aims to ensure girl-child education and empowerment to help curb global warming and make an impact in the community.”
“At Pacegate, we are committed to building a more sustainable and responsible environment where every girlchild feels valued, empowered, and can contribute to the society at large.
“We strongly believe that through the schools’ supplies provided, value-based education being taught to school teachers, and support received from our sponsors, the girlchild will have access to a higher level of educational opportunities,” Mr Amarnani added.
Also commenting on the initiative, Polaris Bank’s Group Head of Customer Experience Management & Sustainability, Ms Bukola Oluyadi, said, “We recognise that education and youth empowerment are the most significant indicators of social progress. Our commitment to these has been the drive for the empowerment of the girl-child and, thus, the partnership with Evolve.
“Since 2021, we have partnered with Evolve and adopted several schools across Nigeria to cater for the needs of the girl child.”
Evolve has a clear mandate using S-connect approaches adapted from Heartfulness Institute Hyderabad. Through the S-connect, Evolve initiative reaches out to educational institutions, most secondary schools across the country, by providing their female students with basic school supplies in fulfilment of Evolve’s mission to tackle Climate Change by empowering the girl-child.
Since its inception, Evolve, in collaboration with all of its partners, has donated school supplies, including school uniforms, sandals, notebooks, pens, and bags, to over 10,000 female students in 32 schools across nine states in the country.
In 2022, Evolve also launched Inspire program to impact teachers specifically. Inspire is a value-based education enrichment program that assists educators in developing a heart-centred approach to teaching. The focus is to enable teachers to take a holistic approach towards student growth using 21st-century styles of learning such as the Heartfulness Way.
Evolve is the CSR arm of ADIPRO Chemicals, executed through Pacegate Limited and PEARL in Nigeria. The Girl Child Education Initiative was launched based on the Project Drawdown Report to address global warming by focusing on educating the girl child.
Asides from Polaris Bank, Evolve has received support from other partners to achieve its mission of empowering girls to reduce global warming eventually. These partners include OVH Energy Marketing, now NNPC Retail Ltd, Bic and Crownstar who have supported Evolve with school supplies, as well as Hill and Knowlton strategies, an international PR consultancy supporting the project with media and publicity.
Dipo Olowookere