Women’s Global Education Project
Newsletter
April 2007
Sisters to School Scholarships kick off in Kenya
W omen’s Global Education Project announces the expansion of our Sisters to School Scholarships Program to Kenya, East Africa!
Partnering with Tharaka Women’s Welfare Program (TWWP) in the rural
Tharaka district near Mount Kenya, Women’s Global will provide
20 elementary scholarships and 10 secondary scholarships to girls from the neediest families in the region.
“Like our program in Senegal, our aim is to empower girls and their families to build new lives for themselves by providing
access to education,” Women’s Global executive director Amy Maglio says. She and Women’s Global board member Joan Sherman
recently returned from an 11-day trip to the village of Gatunga in
Tharaka to meet partners, survey the area’s needs, and set up the
program.
The Women’s Global scholarships will especially target girls who come
from families living in extreme poverty, girls whose families
are struggling with unemployment and the lack of proper nutrition and
other basic resources, girls who have lost one or both parents,
and girls whose parents cannot work because of physical and mental disabilities.
A CLOSER LOOK: Women's Global in Kenya
W omen’s Global is taking a comprehensive approach to promoting education for girls in Kenya, addressing barriers that have to
do with cultural, family and community support, and health factors in addition to providing monetary scholarships.
“Part of the reason why [Executive Director] Amy Maglio and I went to
Kenya was to assess what barriers exist that keep our girls from
going to school,” Women’s Global Board Member Joan Sherman says. “We
must take a holistic approach if we are to address this issue
in a sustainable manner.”
Health Issues
Sherman and Maglio found three major health issues— female genital
circumcision, menstruation and malaria—that prevented girls in Tharaka
from going to school. Women’s Global is incorporating health education
in all of our initiatives to teach girls and their families about
women’s health and the dangers of genital cutting (see next page for
full story). “In regards to menstruation, we found that many girls and
their
families think that a girl is sick when she’s on her period, so she
stays home from school,” Sherman says. “Also, many girls stay home
because they
simply don’t have adequate personal supplies.” As part of the
scholarship program, Women’s Global is helping supply our scholars with
sanitary napkins and other personal hygiene supplies,
as well as mosquito nets to help prevent malaria.
Family and Peer Support
A UNICEF study has found that children with uneducated mothers are at
least twice as likely to be out of primary school than children whose
mothers are educated. To help Tharaka women support their daughters in
school, Women’s Global started an adult literacy program for
approximately 300 women in 10 centers around the region. We provide weekly literacy classes, as well as workshops to help women
learn about health issues and other relevant issues.
Women’s Global is also holding “Moulding Clubs” for 200 boys and girls to discuss issues surrounding education, health, female
genital cutting, hygiene, empowerment, abuse, relationships, and
safety, as well as to take educational trips together and learn new
games
like badminton, table tennis and chess.
Community Support
“We believe that the support of the community is essential in securing
equality in educational opportunities for girls and women,” Sherman
says.
“We were very impressed that there is already a certain level of
awareness among community leaders and women’s groups in Tharaka,
Women’s Global is working
with Folk Media, a local group of dancers and performers who have
pledged to help spread the message of girls’ education through their
performances at
village gatherings and social events. Women’s Global is also promoting
the celebration of an “Education Day” in Tharaka’s capital to recognize
the girls who do well in school and to spread community awareness on the importance of girls’ education.
Spotlight: The Tharaka region, Kenya
Like most Tharaka residents, Felicity, right, relies on selling her
family’s crops to make a living. However, with the region’s low market
prices for
agricultural products, most families do not earn a living wage. This
region of Kenya, near Mount Kenya, is quite remote. To get there, it
takes a rough, four-hour,
44-mile drive over unpaved, broken roads from the nearest town. There is no electricity or running water.
While residents believe that educating their girls is critical to the
region’s economic development, they lack the resources to pay for
schooling.
It is the hope of Women’s Global that through our work in the Tharaka
region, we will make a real difference in the lives of the girls, women
and families of Tharaka.
Women’s Global Fights Female Genital Cutting
F emale genital cutting, is still widely practiced in the
Tharaka region of Kenya. A culturally-entrenched rite of passage for
girls 12 and older, the practice
involves a ceremony where the female external genitalia are cut or
entirely removed. Then there is a month long seclusion for the wounds
to heal —during which
girls are often beaten— and a big family and community celebration
after the girl comes out of seclusion where abusive songs are often
sung.
This practice has been shown to have many harmful effects, including
higher risk for complications during pregnancy and birth, inflammatory
disease and HIV.
Also, wounds often don’t heal properly or will get infected, and may
cause severe bleeding and even death. “Besides the serious physical and
emotional effects for girls,
female circumcision also seriously hampers a girl’s opportunities for
education,” says Aniceta Kiriga, Women’s Global Kenya Project
Coordinator. This is because
girls who go through circumcision are seen as adult women, so therefore
many of them drop out of school to get married and start families,
often at 12 or 13 years
old.
Women’s Global, in partnership with Tharaka Women’s Welfare Program, is
implementing a community education program aimed at helping communities
eradicate
this harmful practice. Besides spreading the word about the dangers of
female cutting, the program also offers girls an alternative way to
formally enter
adulthood. Called “Circumcision With Word,” girls are “secluded” for
one week for empowerment workshops with their mothers and other female
role models.
Topics include the harmful effects of female circumcision, learning
about human and female anatomy and reproduction, personal hygiene,
building relationships,
family life, and personal decision making. After the seclusion, a big
ceremony brings together families and communities to celebrate the
girls’ completion of this rite of
passage. The girls perform uplifting songs and dances with
anticircumcision messages. And, instead of genital cutting, a cake is
cut to celebrate the girls entering
womanhood!
Women’s Global in Senegal:
Participating in National Girls Education Day
W omen’s Global and our Senegal partner UDEN spoke at Senegal’s
first ever National Girls Education Day to bring awareness to the
importance of
girls’ education in Senegal. Attendees included Senegal First Lady
Viviane Wade, as well as Senegalese education officials, local
government officials, representatives
from USAID, Plan International, Action Aid, and UNICEF, teachers,
school officials, and other stakeholders in education and women’s
rights.
Strategies discussed included prioritizing the elimination of
discrimination against girls, addressing the issue of early marriage
and pregnancies, creating inschool
and extracurricular curriculum to address gender issues, family life
and health, ex amining school proximity, and supporting low-income
families with school-aged
daughters. “We were very honored to be part of such a high-profile
event and are excited about working with all the new partners we met
there,” says Women’s
Global Senegal Project Coordinator Adji Senghor, who was a panelist at the event.
Women’s Global in Senegal has 56 elementary and secondary scholars,
with an additional 40 girls in grade exam preparation classes and
another 10 girls in
vocational school.
THANK YOU 2007 1ST QUARTER DONORS!
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& Andy
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TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION
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The United Nations Girls Education Initiative:
Removing barriers to girls education
Poverty, domestic and sexual violence, and cultural traditions are the key factors that hamper girls education around the world,
said panelists at an event hosted by the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) in New York last March 1. The panel
discussion brought together activists, youth peer leaders and education
officials from Nepal, Zambia, South Africa, the Philippines, Kenya, and
Southern Sudan to speak first hand of the challenges women and girls face in their countries.
Teresa Cheptoo, a teenager from Kenya, spoke passionately about the ongoing dangers of female genital mutilation in Kenya
and its detrimental effect on education. In addition to the health hazards, she said, this ancient practice leads to early
marriage and motherhood, effectively ending schooling for many girls and limiting their opportunities in life.
Panelists underlined the importance of eradicating these barriers to help girls achieve a brighter future. “Girls education is a
barometer for wider society,” UNGEI co-chair Lucy Lake said. “If we get it right, A secondary scholar washing her
laundry at school.solutions to other social problems can fall behind.”
For more information, see www.ungei.org.
About Women's Global
Women’s Global Education Project was founded on the idea that everyone is entitled to an education, regardless of gender or
economic status.
UNICEF estimates that worldwide, some 117 million school-aged children do not attend school, 62 million of them girls.
Attendance rates are lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where only 57 percent of girls are in school, and just 15 percent of these
go on to secondary school. Women’s Global believes that universal
education, gender equality and empowerment of women are critical to a
society’s
development. Our mission is to provide access to education and develop training program that empower women and girls to
build better lives and foster equitable communities.
Our programs are currently focused on Senegal and Kenya, where we provide scholarships, after-school tutoring, summer school,
mentoring, and health education programs to help girls and their families build a brighter economic future for themselves, their
communities and our world as a whole.