Mary Nnah
Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative (AREAi), a Nigerian non-profit focused on foundational skills development for disadvantaged children, has recently been named as one of the five winners of the Theirworld Education Innovation Awards 2021.
Each of the organisations, including the Abuja-headquartered charity, will receive £50,000 scale-ready grants and mentoring to help them make an even bigger impact as they deliver education to vulnerable children.
The organisations were selected after rounds of application screening, before they were earmarked to receive necessary scaleup funding and mentoring support towards reaching more beneficiaries and maximising impact.
Speaking after the media pronouncement, Chief Executive Director of AREAi and a Global Youth Ambassador for Theirworld, Gideon Seun Olanrewaju, said his organisation decided to start its initiative, the FastTrack innovation, as a response to the urgent need for Nigeria’s upcoming generations to acquire the foundational and functional skills, particularly literacy and numeracy, which they require to strive in a constantly evolving world.
“When I heard the announcement, I was extremely happy because, finally, Theirworld is adding the last element needed to have a complete youth engagement strategy. It is really, really empowering for every member of our team who has played or continues to play a critical role in the process of designing this intervention”, he said.
Another member of the AREAi team, Olajide Charles Falajiki, the Community Engagement Manager explains that the funding award is crucial for the growth of FastTrack, a high-impact intervention.
“We have seen the potential and through the support of Theirworld, we will be working across two states in Nigeria over the next 12 months to scale the reach and amplify the impact to enable over 2500 out-of-school children learn to read, write and do basic arithmetic in the most exciting and rewarding way possible”, he added.
