The Nikki Training Centre for Girls' is a training centre in the northern Benin region of Borgou and it provides quality education in Bariba and French to teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 25. This centre has been operating on a six month cycle each year since the early 1990s, and is now expanding to offer a three year programme in order to effectively deliver Christian-based education and vocational training.
The girls come from poor and illiterate communities, and the hope is that the Bariba people will benefit through the education and training of their young women.
The Centre aims to:
• Fight illiteracy by providing quality education in Bariba and basic French.
• Provide a Christian Bible based education which includes social and health development.
• Provide training to enable the girls to participate actively in the community, such skills as sewing, knitting and cooking.
• To work towards a higher degree of the Vocational Certificate by teaching French up to the elementary school level.
The current facilities are inadequate for the curriculum expansion and the increase in students, so the school is planning to build a dormitory, dining facility and three toilets. The construction project will take six months to complete and will house 60 girls; 20 girls on each year of the three year programme.
October 2011 Update:
With the overall goal to improve the living and teaching conditions of the students and staff of the Centre, the following additions are planned:
- 3 classrooms and a small apartment (second floor on dormitory) to fight the lack of classrooms
- 2 storerooms for the grain and other food supplies: the storage conditions and room is insufficient.
- 6 shops, one for the schools articles to sell and others for rent. To make the school more visible and provide some income through the rent. (On the main road out of town)
- Construct a paillote (shelter) as dining room. What was intended as a dining room was more urgently needed as a sewing workshop.
- Ground floor of a duplex for staff
Read Zina's story on Benin's story page to see how Nikki's Girls' Centre is making a difference.
