Programmes and Projects
Our Programmes run throughout the year.
International Women's Day (IWD)
We don’t just observe International Women’s Day. We use it. Each March, JCI Aso turns the day into a working programme for women in business, leadership, and creative practice. In fact, we celebrate every woman who makes things work. The 2026 edition picked up the global IWD theme Give to Gain, with four Sovereign Pitch sessions covering financial systems, scaling a business, digital soft power, and work-life harmony, plus an Impact Session honouring women globally. The 2024 edition coincided with NEXIM Bank’s launch of the Women In Export Development Fund, securing for our beneficiary, Madam Chidinma RICE, a ₦5 million support grant, a rice milling machine, and an educational scholarship for her son.
Partner with us, sponsor a beneficiary, support the next edition, and in fact, uphold the values of the program.
Membership Development Series (MDS)
The Membership Development Series is JCI Aso’s standing investment in our members’ leadership, entrepreneurship, and professional skills development. Members tell us what they need most, and we build the programme around that. It now runs as a multi-part series across the year, with certificates awarded on completion. The 2025 edition (MDS 4.0) brought together members from JCI Abuja Unity, JCI Abuja Prestige, and JCI Abuja Metro across multiple. The 2026 series, MDS 5.0, was shaped by a member-wide skills survey; the first session, MDS 5.1, ran in April on AI, Communication and Productivity, covering AI fundamentals, prompt engineering, professional communication, productivity tools, ethics, and a practical simulation.
It’s open beyond JCI: members, friends, and guests welcome. Sign up for the next session, or partner with us to sponsor one.
Secondary School Debate
The JCI Aso Secondary School Debate is an annual contest for FCT secondary schools designed to build critical thinking, public speaking, and civic awareness in young people who will eventually run the country. We don’t shy away from the hard topics. In 2025, Government Secondary School, Karshi, took the trophy after debating whether technology is a game-changer or a flawed solution in the fight against financial corruption; the ICPC Chairman, Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, delivered the keynote. The 2026 edition, scheduled for 25 June at Nile University, takes on the defining question of our era: Balancing the Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence: Does AI threaten human intelligence, creativity, and social development among young people, and how can it be used responsibly for a better future? Recurring partners include the FCT Secondary Education Board, the Federal Ministry of Education, ICPC, MTN Nigeria, UNODC, and 7Up Bottling Company. Winners leave the podium with digital skills scholarships.
Schools that want to enter their students, sponsors who want to back a category: we’re listening.
Baba & Yara Novelty Games
“Baba” is father. “Yara” is a child. Once a year, on Workers’ Day, JCI Aso brings the two together at the National Stadium, Abuja. Senior members (“Babas”) and active members (“Yaras”) compete side by side in football, table tennis, draughts, tug-of-war, and over a dozen other novelty games. A signature Paralympic game with the Abuja Para Olympics team has become a fixture. The 14th edition (May 2026) drew leaders from JCI local organizations across Nigeria and opened a four-month sustainability campaign, Baba & Yara: Race to Green: the traditional competition was reimagined as a Plastic Waste Collection Challenge between the generations, every kilogram destined for a local recycling hub. Monthly aerobics sessions throughout the year keep the energy going. Recurring partners include Cedarcrest Hospital, Mainstream Global Insurance, Mayya’s Wellness, Virtusso, and Sam-Vic Boff & Co.
We are building this into a movement, one workout, one game, one weighted bag at a time. Host a session, supply a recycling partner, or back a sustainability sprint.
Educate-a-child
Sunny Augustine wears the uniform of a Lieutenant in the Nigerian Army. Jumoke Lawrence runs a food business out of Lagos. Both are graduates of Educate-A-Child, JCI Aso’s longest-running social investment, started in 2014 to fund the schooling of orphans and less-privileged children from primary school through to a tertiary degree. The project provides scholarships and school supplies, and it also brings beneficiaries into the JCI family for mentorship, training, and exposure. Beyond direct sponsorship, we have donated to motherless babies’ homes and renovated a block of classrooms at the Christ Foundation Orphanage, Kuje. Our current beneficiary, Abraham Solomon, is studying Hospitality and Tourism Management at Federal Polytechnic, Kaduna.
Now in our second decade, we are moving from year-by-year sponsorship to a five-year funding plan with a community of donors. Sponsor a child. Fund a tuition cycle. Help us write more graduate stories.
Save a Soul
Save A Soul listens before it acts. JCI Aso’s flagship community health project picks a single priority each year and goes after it through three things: screenings, awareness campaigns, and direct support to underserved communities. The 2025 edition, themed Break the Chain: Get Screened, Get Protected Against Hepatitis B, ran free screenings for malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B for Abuja residents in partnership with the FCT Primary Health Care Board, Cube Group, and Sylvastar Group. In 2024, the focus was mental health, with a wellness walk at Jabi Lake and a multi-day outreach to the Kirikiri Correctional Centre that delivered counselling, dental care, donations, and Red Cross-led CPR training. In 2026, the project added a webinar series to extend its reach beyond physical outreach days, with non-communicable disease awareness as an early focus.
We go where the need is. Volunteer, refer a community, or help fund the next outreach.
Quality Leadership Value (QLV) Series
Leadership isn’t a title. It is a discipline. The Quality Leadership Value (QLV) Series is JCI Aso’s leadership programme for the kind of professionals who treat it that way: emerging leaders, business operators, public servants, and ambitious early-career members ready to test their thinking under pressure. It centres on ethics, responsible leadership, and the practical skills that translate to better organisations. Past editions have trained participants on transformational leadership, on leading in a VUCA world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), and most recently on leadership excellence, organisational resilience, youth empowerment, and digital transformation. The 2024 edition ran as a multi-day hybrid programme at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, with over 75 participants, 85% rating the experience as highly impactful, and several reporting they applied lessons inside their own organisations within days of finishing.
The 2026 edition is loading and promises to be more. Whether you want to attend, send a delegation, or sponsor a cohort, we’ll make room.