Building Resilience Through Education

From 2020 to 2023, Save the Children Canada implemented three girls’ education projects in Colombia, DRC, and Nigeria, in partnership with Global Affairs Canada. This $35.6 million portfolio was funded under the Canadian government’s Feminist International Aid Policy via the Charlevoix Education Initiative, a $400 million commitment to girls’ education in crisis-affected contexts, announced at the 2018 G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec. Together, our three projects have reached over 260,000 girls, boys, parents, teachers, and community members, in Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Nigeria.

In this briefing note, we provide an overview of our Charlevoix girls’ education portfolio, including its goals, interventions and impact to build resilient learners, communities and schools. Within our portfolio, we specifically targeted fragile contexts experiencing complex challenges – northern Nigeria, eastern DRC and the border of Venezuela/Colombia. While these socio-political contexts are unique, the three countries are severely affected by ongoing conflict, forced displacement and climate change, causing school closures and disruptions to learning and protection risks, particularly for girls.