Lagos NGO wins €80,000 education innovation grant

The Creative Kids Zone Initiative (TCKZone), a Lagos-based non-profit organisation, has emerged one the winners of the second cohort of the Theirworld Education Innovation Awards.

The NGO will receive masterclasses, mentoring and £80,000 scale-up grants to help them expand their exciting and inspiring programmes to reach more learners.

Others winners of the grant are Book Dash (South Africa) and Seenaryo Playkit (Lebanon and Jordan)

In a statement on Saturday, the organisation said the winners were chosen by an expert panel looking for original and exciting programmes which Theirworld could support to scale up and deliver learning and skills to even more young people. The awards are open to non-profits, NGOs and charities.

“There is a global gap in support and funding that lets exciting, proven education innovations scale up their impact,” Angela Solomon, Theirworld’s senior advisor for innovation, projects and research, said.

“We created Theirworld’s Education Innovation Awards to help meet that need – and we are so excited that our second cohort is so strong, innovative and passionately committed to achieving systems change for marginalized learners.”

Oluwadamilola Soyombo the brain of TCK Zone, said she is excited that TCK Zone is part of the winners.

“We see this as a validation of our efforts and a chance to showcase the impact we have made in empowering young students with digital skills,” she said.

Soyombo launched The Creative Kids Zone in May 2019 to train kids in tech skills.

TCKZone reaches out to thousands of children in African communities and makes them ambassadors for technology, by organising free training to introduce them to technology skills including, coding, design, robotics, AI, game development and other STEM fields.