The International Day of the Girl Child is celebrated globally today, October 11. Each year, it draws attention to the unique challenges girls face around the world, from inequality and discrimination to exclusion from decision-making.

This year?s theme, ?The girl I am, the change I lead: Girls on the frontlines of crisis,? shifts the focus from girls as victims to girls as leaders. It recognises their courage and creativity in confronting some of the world?s toughest crises, conflict, climate change, displacement, and social injustice. The theme calls for the world to see girls not only for the barriers they encounter, but for the strength, vision, and solutions they bring to their communities.

Across Nigeria, women and girls are proving this truth every day. They are standing at the frontlines of multiple crises, leading campaigns for climate justice, mental health awareness, and an end to gender-based violence. They are organising within their communities and challenging harmful norms.

Here are some of the remarkable Nigerian women leading that charge, visionaries who have turned crisis into purpose and built change from the ground up. International Day of the Girl Child

Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola: Turning Waste into wealth

Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola is a force in Nigeria?s waste-management and recycling sector. She founded WeCyclers in 2012, a social enterprise that provides waste collection and recycling services to low-income communities in Lagos, places where city waste often spreads uncollected. Rather than seeing waste as a problem only, Adebiyi-Abiola saw an opportunity, engage households, reward them for sorting their trash, and turn recyclable materials into value.

WeCyclers uses low-cost cargo bikes (?wecycles?) to reach informal settlements, households are given incentives based on how much recyclable waste they supply, via SMS-based point system redeemable for goods like phone credit or basic items. Over time, the model has created real economic opportunities, employment both direct and indirect, alternate incomes for households, and a cleaner environment.

Her achievements are many, WeCyclers has won awards Sustainia100, Cartier Women?s Initiative, Tech Awards and recognition for its social innovation. Adebiyi-Abiola holds advanced degrees, an MBA from MIT, which she uses not just for prestige but to sharpen her model and scale impact.

In the face of climate pollution, poor sanitation, and urban neglect, Adebiyi-Abiola leads change. She shows that young women can confront crises?environmental, health, inequality not by being victims, but by inventing systems that uplift both people and planet. Her story inspires that real change is possible even in places often overlooked.

Adenike Oladosu: Climate justice advocate

Adenike Titilope Oladosu is a prominent Nigerian ecofeminist and climate justice activist, born in 1994, who leads from the front in addressing the climate crisis. She founded the I Lead Climate Action Initiative, which works to empower indigenous women and girls across Nigeria and beyond, giving them voice, tools, and platforms to address environmental degradation, especially in communities hit hardest by climate change.

Oladosu has taken the climate conversation global. She was a youth delegate to several UN Climate Change Conferences (COP25 and others), speaking on how climate change intersects with democracy and human rights. She has also built curricula on climate change and ecofeminism in Africa?helping educate a new generation. Her work around Lake Chad illustrates how she uses data, mapping, and Earth Observation to address environmental loss and conflict.

Oladosu was honored by Amnesty International Nigeria with the ?Ambassador of Conscience? award, included among BBC?s 100 Women in 2024, and appointed a fellow of climate protection institutions intertwined with human rights.

In a world facing climate disaster, Oladosu stands on the frontlines. Not just advocating, but organizing, educating, mapping, and demanding system changes.

Hauwa Ojeifo: Giving voice to mental health, breaking stigma

Hauwa Ojeifo is a mental health activist whose lived experience has become a powerful catalyst for change. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, PTSD, psychosis, and a survivor of sexual violence, she founded She Writes Woman in 2016 to offer support, awareness, and safe spaces for people, especially women and girls, living with psychosocial disabilities

One of her early actions was creating Safe Place, a walk-in clinic for ?life issues,? as well as starting one of Nigeria?s first 24-hour mental health crisis helplines, and an anonymous women-only support group that connects women across cities like Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and Kaduna.

Ojeifo has used advocacy to push mental health into policy. She was the first person in Nigeria openly living with a mental health condition to testify before the National Assembly during the reading of the mental health bill. She?s been-recognized globally: among TIME?s 2024 Next Generation Leaders; winner of the MTV EMA Generation Change Award; Queen?s Young Leaders Award; and others.

Ojeifo?s leadership matters in crises of mental health stigma, where silence is often assumed. By speaking up, building institutions, and claiming space for policy change. Her story shows courage, and that pain can be turend into purpose.

Karimot Olabisi Odebode: Youth voice rising in education & gender justice

Karimot Olabisi Odebode is a young Nigerian lawyer, poet, and education advocate who founded Black Girl?s Dream Initiative?a youth-led organization aimed at closing gender gaps in education, leadership, and public speaking opportunities for girls. Even at a young age she has impacted thousands of students: over 1,100 students in 55 schools through teaching debate, critical thinking, public speaking.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she organized activism such as the Ibadan Walk Against Rape, which brought attention to gender-based violence and led to the establishment of a Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Oyo State. She has co-written reports, contributed to global education policy discussions (e.g. G7?s global education goals), and has been part of UN-led youth and education networks. She was one of the 17 young leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) selected by the UN in 2022.

Olabisi Odebode is also a poet, using her writing to amplify women?s voices, challenge gender stereotypes, and push for greater participation of young women in public life. (BusinessDay)

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