Liberia: Bridge Liberia supports students Forming Part of the National Girls Summit in Commemoration of the Int’l Day of the Girl Child

TAs the world commemorates the International Day of the Girl Child, female students at Bridge Liberia supported Schools on Monday October 10 joined other adolescent girls in Monrovia to participate in a one day girls summit and panel discussion

Organised by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the summit and panel discussion focused on the growth and development of the girl child in Liberia

Over 120 adolescent girls gathered at the Monrovia City Hall to discuss several issues including career choices, adolescent challenges, substance abuse among others The students also used the event to network with expert presenters who deliberated on these topics

Such networking and extra curricular activity supports student development outside of the classroom, in addition to the learning that takes place in the classroom Core curriculum activities as it is described at Bridge for students forms part of the learning and development for students in the Bridge Liberia ecosystem.

This year, the world is celebrating International Day of the Girl Child under the theme, ”our time is now,-our rights, our future”, a time when global education stakeholders are also calling for equity in education

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said at the recently held Transforming Education Summit, “when girls and women have an equal opportunity to learn – and when education supports gender equality for all – communities and societies prosper ”

This statement stands at the core of Bridge Liberia principles for equity in education

Bridge Liberia, which is the largest partner in the Liberia Education Advancement Program under the Ministry of Education, is empowering a new generation of confident and successful girls by significantly improving learning outcomes for them

Bridge supported teachers are trained to call on both boys and girls in the classroom

As fewer girls than boys usually tend to volunteer in class, teachers are trained to practice what is known as cold calling to ensure equal participation

Professional development and classroom management techniques focus on encouraging girls to be leaders in and out of the classroom All of these interventions and principles have yielded positive results for girls in the Bridge ecosystem

Fifth-grade girls’ average performance on reading fluency increased by more than 27 words per minute Once lagging by 10 words per minute, girls now outperform boys

According to a recent study conducted by 2019 Nobel Prize winner Michael Kremer and a team under one of NewGlobe’s Programs in Kenya, girls make the same leap in learning as boys

This methodology is the same one used at Bridge Liberia-supported schools. As NewGlobe is Bridge Liberia’s technical partner.