Girls in Tech — Striving For All's AI, Coding and Entrepreneurship Track at the Thrive Center, Douala

Striving For All (SFA) is a nonprofit running the Thrive Center in Douala, Cameroon, since 2023, offering technology and soft-skills training to secondary-school-age youth. Its Girls in Tech track, developed in partnership with the global nonprofit Technovation, focuses specifically on girls aged 12–18, teaching block-based and Python programming, web development, and how artificial intelligence can be applied to everyday problems, alongside mentorship from female engineers and entrepreneurs.

In the center's 2024–2025 cohort, drawn from partner schools including Lycée Joss and Lycée de New Bell, nearly 100 students took part in the youth development curriculum; after eight months, 91 students earned certificates in artificial intelligence and other professional skills, and five top performers were selected for a follow-on internship programme. Since the center opened in 2023, close to 400 children and teenagers have been trained in total.

The programme's evidence is self-reported by the organisation and corroborated by independent local press coverage, but it has not been externally evaluated, and outcome data is limited to completion counts rather than measured learning gains or post-programme employment/education tracking. It is best read as a promising, evidence-light community model for closing the AI-skills gender gap in an under-resourced West/Central African city, rather than a rigorously validated one.

Read the full analysis: https://strivingforall.org/girls-in-tech