By Ike Uchechukwu,  CALABAR 

In a move to challenge stigma and restore lost opportunities, Her Voice Foundation is returning out-of-school adolescent girls to classrooms across Cross River State through a structured education and empowerment programme.

The foundation is implementing its Girls to Women: Stronger, Bolder project to support adolescent girls who dropped out of school due to pregnancy and help them reintegrate into formal education.

Speaking with journalists, the founder of Her Voice Foundation, Favour Abatang, said the initiative was designed to confront societal attitudes that permanently exclude young mothers from school and limit their future prospects.

 “Pregnancy should not be a life sentence that ends a girl’s education,” Abatang said. 

“Many of these girls are eager to return to school, but stigma, rejection and lack of support continue to keep them out of the classroom.”

She explained that the project reflects the foundation’s commitment to protecting girls’ rights and restoring access to education. 

According to her, the programme combines school re-enrolment support, psychosocial counselling, mentorship and life skills training to help beneficiaries rebuild confidence and successfully transition back into learning environments.

Abatang disclosed that the project has reached about 500 adolescent girls, with 350 supported through second chance education pathways and 150 through entrepreneurship and vocational skills training.

One of the beneficiaries, 17 year old Eneji Margaret, shared her experience, explaining that she became pregnant at 15 and was forced to abandon her education due to financial hardship and social rejection. 

Through the programme, she acquired literacy and numeracy skills, received adolescent sexuality education and was supported to return to full time learning.

Inspired by the care she received during childbirth, Margaret said she now hopes to become a nurse. “I am nurturing my dreams to heal others,” she said.

The project was implemented in Obudu, Bekwarra and Obanliku Local Government Areas of the state. Community leaders say the intervention is beginning to shift long held attitudes towards girls’ education.

In Ablesang community, Obanliku LGA, Chief Shikishong Jeremiah said the programme changed his personal views and those of many parents. 

He noted that he now actively mobilises girls in his community to participate in literacy and numeracy programmes and personally visits families to encourage them to keep their daughters in school.

The foundation expressed optimism that sustained community engagement and support would help ensure that more girls remain in school and are empowered to pursue meaningful futures.