Alero Thompson of Blue Sands Academy is Our #BellaNaijaWCW this Week!

For our #BellaNaijaWCW feature this week, we celebrate Alero Thompson, the founder and Chief Education Officer at Blue Sands Academy, an intervention educational centre in Kaduna state, northwest, Nigeria. Blue Sands Academy provides top digitized education to out-of-school primary and secondary school pupils and other students in the state.

The school offers computer literacy trainings to students, women and teachers. It also delivers STEM education to young girls in underserved communities.

At least 300 out-of-school children have been impacted by Blue Sands Academy’s work, and it 2019, the institution trained a team of 5 girls who represented Kaduna state in the Technovation Regional Pitching competition in Nigeria.

Alero’s Sound Her Nigeria was nominated in the “Best Idea” category by United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2017. Sound Her Nigeria provides basic education, vocational skills and leadership training for girls and women that missed the opportunity of attending school. It combines the basic math and literacy classes with vocational skills like sewing, knitting, tailoring, soap making and pomade making, local custard production and baking.

Sound Her Nigeria metamorphosed into Blue Sands Academy.

Alero has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Lagos State University; a Diploma in Education from Ahmadu Bello University; and a  Capacity Building and Entrepreneurship Certificate from African Management Initiative, Nairobi, Kenya.

Alero is a 2018 Obama Foundation: Leaders Africa fellow and a participant in the 2017 YALI Regional Leadership Center, West African Cohort 3.

We celebrate Alero for her contribution to impacting the lives of marginalised women and girls, and we’re rooting for her.