The Egbema Girl-Child Education Foundation is a participatory arts initiative curating live performance, storytelling, and cultural practice to engage communities and explore themes of girls’ voices, identity, and social experience in Nigeria.
Since its establishment in 2019, the organisation has developed a consistent body of live arts practice rooted in poetry, dance, music, spoken word, storytelling, and community performance.
These live artistic engagements function as structured participatory platforms enabling girls and young people to express lived experience, explore identity, and engage with social realities affecting their communities through creative expression.
The foundation’s early curatorial activity began in Egbema communities, where initial live arts engagements were introduced at grassroots level. From this base, its practice expanded into other communities within Imo State, and further across the Orashi region and additional communities in Rivers State, reflecting a sustained growth of participatory arts engagement across diverse local contexts in Nigeria.
Across these communities, the organisation has delivered a range of live arts programmes including theatre presentations, participatory storytelling sessions, dance and music performances, spoken word showcases, cultural gatherings, and community-based creative workshops. These include initiatives such as ONELGA Girl-Child Day and Ohaji-Egbema Girls Day in 2020, followed by Orashi Girl-Child Day in 2021 and Rivers State Girl-Child Day in 2022, each combining performance, storytelling, and cultural expression as structured platforms for community dialogue and girls’ voice amplification.
The organisation’s curatorial approach reflects an emerging model of grassroots participatory performance practice in which live arts are embedded within community contexts as a means of engaging lived realities rather than abstract representation. It demonstrates how performance can function as both an artistic and socially engaged practice, particularly in contexts where girls and young people are often underrepresented in public cultural spaces.
Notably, this participatory approach distinguishes the organisation from conventional outreach models by positioning live performance as a core artistic methodology grounded in storytelling, spoken word, and cultural expression, with participation and collective voice at its centre.
The organisation creates safe and expressive artistic spaces where girls actively participate in storytelling, drama, spoken word, and performance-based expression. These spaces support confidence-building, creativity, public voice, and dialogue around identity and inclusion.
Its continued expansion from Egbema into parts of Imo State, the Orashi region, and wider communities across Rivers State demonstrates a growing footprint within community-based arts practice in Nigeria.
These live arts interventions also function as cultural reflection platforms, using performance-based storytelling to encourage communities to engage with social issues affecting girls and young people, while sustaining and reinterpreting indigenous cultural expression through contemporary practice.
The Curator of the organisation, Miss Ijeoma Anointing Nkeiruka, leads its participatory arts methodology and community-based performance practice. Her curatorial approach is reflected in the development of live arts programmes that prioritise storytelling, dance, spoken word, and cultural performance as structured forms of artistic engagement and social dialogue. Overall, the organisation’s impact is reflected in its sustained use of participatory arts to amplify girls’ voices, strengthen community engagement, and position creative expression as a meaningful platform for social awareness, inclusion, and transformation across Nigeria.
