This month we launched our new In Their Lifetime impact report entitled, Innovation, Impact and Lasting Change, looking back at more than 16 years of innovation through the In Their Lifetime programme. The report explores how small, locally led ideas – supported by ITL funding – have grown into lasting change across 23 countries, influencing policies, markets and communities long after the original projects ended.
One of the projects featured looks at the long-term impact of the Collective Action for Adolescent Girls Initiative (CAAGI) in northern Nigeria. The project, which ran from 2016 to 2018, worked with faith leaders and adolescent girls to challenge early marriage, support girls to stay in school and build skills to earn their own income.
While preparing the report, we spoke to former participants and community leaders seven years after the project ended. Their stories reveal how the skills, confidence and community support created through CAAGI continue to transform lives today.
For Fatima Yahaya, who was trained in tailoring through the project, the impact has reached far beyond her own household. Fatima now runs a thriving sewing business while raising three children. She has already trained seven other girls in tailoring – including her younger sister – and is currently mentoring three more apprentices. The income from her work has helped her support her widowed mother and contribute to household expenses.
Honestly, I can’t thank the donor and the implementers of the CAAGI project enough. My life has transformed positively… Since I started sewing, I have never been out of a job.
Others have used their training to build businesses that also support their education. Zainab Sani Ya’u learned to make bedsheets and pillowcases and now sells them to customers in her community while studying at university. Through her business, Zainab has also helped support her younger sister, who is studying radiography at the same university.
During holidays I mass produce bedsheets and pillowcases and sell them while in school. The gains help me buy handouts, feeding and pay my other bills.
For Habiba Hussinni, training in soap-making has grown into a small enterprise supplying local retailers. She has already trained nine other girls, including three of her sisters, and continues to teach young women in her husband’s village.
The ripple effects of the project are also visible across communities. Faith leaders who took part in the programme continue to champion girls’ education and speak out against harmful practices such as early marriage and gender-based violence.
Pastor Ibrahim Umar says the training permanently changed how he approaches his role:
“The training gave me direction on how to champion the cause of adolescent girls and this has now become a part of me anywhere I go.”
Similarly, Imam Mohammed Sani describes how attitudes in his community have shifted over time.
“There is a huge increase in the number of children who are in school and the majority are girls… Today there is no culture of silence on issues of rape.”
These stories highlight one of the core ambitions of the In Their Lifetime programme: to support ideas that continue creating change long after a project ends.
Seven years on, the CAAGI project is still helping young women earn an income, support their families and inspire the next generation of girls to pursue education and opportunity.