The year 2022 is a particularly exciting and thrilling year at Batonga. We welcome positive transformations. The organization is growing, expanding its programs, new members, new offices for the Benin team. In March, Batonga’s staff moved to a new office space in the city of Cotonou in the Haie Vive. Working in partnership with the…
Among the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day, data is sufficiently lacking for women and girls. At Batonga, we believe that collecting more inclusive and reliable data on gender will enable the hardest to reach girls in a community to be engaged and guide better policy in Benin and the world beyond.
Learn more about this urgent need for a gender data revolution and Batonga’s work to spark this movement in this blog post.
Ever wondered why we work in Benin and specifically invest in Benin’s female youth? Check out our this blog post to find out how Benin’s growing population of youth creates an incredible opportunity to help the country develop politically, economically, and socially.
We sat down with Program Officer Caitlin Hone to discuss her recent trip to Benin – read along to learn more about Batonga’s staff, mentors, Girls Club members, and our exciting on-the-ground work!
Angelique watches as Girls Club members make soap. On World Youth Skills Day, we celebrate the power of transferable skills to improve the lives of countless youth all over the world. Not only does an increase in skills training for youth lead to greater personal success, but it can also lead to a stronger and healthier global economy.
Although the worldwide gender gap in education has begun to close, there are still significant disparities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. In the United States, women make up only 35% of undergraduate students in STEM fields, in Benin, however, where only 1 in 4 girls complete primary school, the STEM gap is even more pronounced. For girls who make it past primary school, obstacles such as familial obligations, sexual assault, unplanned pregnancy, menstruation, and child marriage can make staying in and excelling in school even more challenging.
Check out these videos of our founder, Angelique Kidjo visiting our mentors and Girls Club members in Bohicon, Benin on International Day of the Girl!