Girls Lead Safe Space Initiative

Empowering the
Next Generation

Establishing secure physical environments, advancing digital safety literacy, and cultivating transformative leadership capabilities for girls across Nigeria.

Discover Our Impact Watch Our Work

270+

Girls Impacted

2+

States Reached

4

Core Modules

8

Facilitators

Who We Are &
What We Do

Who We Are

The Girls Lead Safe Space (GLSS) is a high-impact, rapid-response initiative implemented through IVLEAD (I Volunteer for Leadership). We are a community-driven movement dedicated to empowering adolescent girls specifically students between the ages 11 to 20 by providing them with secure, physical spaces to learn, organize, and grow. Operating across multiple locations including Lagos, Abuja, and Ekiti, we counter emerging vulnerabilities by cultivating the next generation of confident, digitally secure, and organized young women leaders.

What We Do

We deliver a transformative, multi-session curriculum that moves beyond standard academics to tackle real-world challenges. Our core modules focus on intrinsic leadership development, values and decision-making, digital safety, and comprehensive reproductive health. Through strategic advocacy, interactive workshops, and peer-led campaigns, we transform girls into confident advocates for their own rights.

Furthermore, with the support of dedicated partners like the Foundation for Excellent Living and Development for Youths and Women (FELAD), we distribute vital resources, such as sanitary pads, to address practical barriers to wellbeing and ensure consistent school attendance.

Our Core Pillars

We deliver an intensive curriculum designed to equip girls with practical, life-saving, and career-building skills.

Confidence & Leadership

Dispelling myths about leadership and realizing that being a girl is not a limitation but a superpower.

Values & Choices

Developing strong personal values, making responsible choices, and confidently resisting negative peer pressure.

Digital Safety

Equipping girls to navigate the internet responsibly, protect their data, and build positive digital footprints.

Health & Hygiene

Breaking menstrual health myths and supporting wellbeing through comprehensive education and resource distribution.

Girls Lead Safe Space Phase 2

The Girls Lead Safe Space program is back and this time, we are going further.

Phase 2 of GLSS is bringing our free leadership development and health outreach to two secondary schools in Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State — Ilupeju High School and Oye Egbo High School. Scheduled for the 25th and 26th of May 2026, the outreach coincides with World Menstrual Hygiene Day, making this phase more intentional and more timely than ever.

Just like Phase 1 where we reached over 270 secondary school girls in one school, the program will cover four key areas: leadership and self-worth, values and peer pressure, digital safety, and menstrual health and hygiene. Every girl who attends will walk away with a sanitary pad pack and something far more lasting: the knowledge that she is capable, she is valued, and she has what it takes to lead.

GLSS x FELAD Nigeria —
A Partnership for the Girls of Oye-Ekiti

The Girls Lead Safe Space program is proud to announce a partnership with the Foundation for Excellent Living and Development for Youths and Women (FELAD Nigeria) for the Phase 2 outreach. This partnership is not a new relationship — FELAD supported the GLSS Phase 1 outreach with sanitary products, and their contribution made a direct and lasting difference for the girls who received them. For Phase 2, that support grows stronger.

FELAD Nigeria is championing the World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2026 initiative across the southwest, and GLSS is proud to be part of that movement right here in Oye-Ekiti. Together, we are ensuring that the girls at Ilupeju High School and Oye Egbo High School not only receive leadership training and health education but also walk away with sanitary pad packs as a direct, practical expression of care.

This is what partnership looks like when it is built on shared values — two organisations that believe the wellbeing of a girl is never a small thing, showing up together for the girls who need it most.

FELAD Nigeria x Girls Lead Safe Space | World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2026 | Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State

Project Coordinator

Mercy Opayinka Oluwafunmilayo

Mercy Opayinka Oluwafunmilayo is a data scientist and development professional working at the intersection of health analytics and evidence-based policy design. Holding a degree in Information and Communication Engineering from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), she leverages technical rigor to drive systemic social change.

Currently, Mercy serves as a Research Data Analyst at the International Centre for Applied Mathematical Modelling and Data Analysis (ICAMMDA), where she applies advanced data science and mathematical modeling to real-world health challenges, including developing AI-powered early detection systems for cervical cancer. Alongside this, she is a Policy Tracker at The Refugee Archive, co-authoring the Nigeria Female-Headed Household Policy Tracker to translate complex datasets into actionable advocacy.

As the Project Coordinator for the Girls Lead Safe Space (GLSS), Mercy designed and led a multi-session curriculum that equipped over 270 secondary school girls with skills in digital safety, ethical leadership, and reproductive health, while coordinating essential resources like sanitary pads to support their wellbeing.

"An alumna and Cohort Facilitator for the Harvard Aspire Leaders Program, she remains driven by a singular commitment: to build evidence-driven systems that translate data into action, policy into impact, and innovation into equity."