World Education Inc. Begins New Initiative To Support Highly Marginalized Girls

World Education Inc. (WEI), has introduced a new five-year initiative aimed at supporting marginalised girls in Ghana by imparting relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for life and work.

The project, Strategic Approaches to Girls Education (STAGE) was officially launched at a stakeholders’ meeting in Accra on November 6, 2018, and targets 20,100 highly vulnerable and marginalized girls with interventions designed to improve their lives by acquiring literacy, numeracy and life skills.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is funding the ‘Leave No Girl Behind’, initiative as part of the Girls’ Education Challenge. It will support interventions to assist these adolescent girls who have never attended or have already dropped out of school.

Addressing participants at the meeting, Susan Adu-Aryee, WEI Country Director, said “investing in the girls would drive progress towards national development, adding that educating girls is one of the most relevant priorities of a nation because when we invest in girls we invest in the future”.

She said, “though education for all has been very high on the country’s national agenda there are still people who through their vulnerability and varying circumstances, are being left behind”. The girls would be engaged and encouraged to make a significant difference in the lives of their families, communities and at the national level. She urged the participants to renew their commitment towards assisting the beneficiaries to make a significant difference throughout the project.

“I am optimistic that the project would help transform and empower the girls to make choices in transition after their education”.

Miss Lucy Aklaku, Senior Project Co-ordinator, who spoke on the scope of project said the project would enable the girls acquire literacy, numeracy and life skills through accelerated learning programmes to enable them to become self-sufficient. She indicated that a lot of advocacy, networking, behaviour change communication, child protection hotline, peer education transition support and the training of facilitators would be undertaken to ensure the success of the programme.

As part of the programme, a Panel Discussion and Q&A Session was organised. These provided further insights into the project.

World Education, Inc. (WEI) is a private voluntary organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, with a mission to meet the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged populations through social and economic development programs. Incorporated in 1951, WEI implements programs in basic education, HIV prevention and education, vocational and life skills education, microenterprise and livelihoods development, girls’ and women’s education, and comprehensive care for orphans and vulnerable children from more than 22 country offices across Africa and Asia, as well as in the United States. WEI programs provide training, technical assistance, capacity building support to catalyze development efforts at the national and local levels. WEI builds the capacity of local institutions to better plan, implement, and evaluate community development programs. WEI equips local partner organizations with technical, management, and financial skills and strengthens networks with key local leaders, government, and policy officials whose support is critical to large-scale, long-term success. WEI’s participatory approaches facilitate joint problem-solving processes and contribute to long-term sustainability by fostering local ownership, building on existing programs and systems, and fostering collaboration and sharing of expertise among program stakeholders.

WEI has long maintained a strong presence in West Africa, with a significant program portfolio in Ghana since 2001, that has centred around HIV prevention and education, integrated literacy and livelihoods, girl’s education, curriculum development, nonformal education, early grade reading, technology driven interventions and mobilizing out of school youth.

In addition, WEI prioritizes building the capacity of local institutions to better plan, implement and evaluate community development programs.

Strategic Approaches to Girls Education (STAGE) Project

Project Goal: The project aims to support marginalised girls to improve their lives through education by achieving and acquiring literacy and numeracy skills; relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for life and work.

Target Group: Girls between ages 10 – 19 Regions: Central, Volta, Eastern, Northern, Upper West, and Upper East regions Collaborators: Ministry of Education, Ministry of Gender and Social Protection, Ministry of Local Government, National Board for Small Scale Industries

The Strategy
The Strategic Approaches to Girls’ Education (STAGE) project proposed by WEI will combine two mutually supportive tracks for highly marginalised girls - formal school and informal learning - to bring a holistic approach to the education of girls and lower the barriers that they face at the individual, community, school, and system levels.

The STAGE project will specifically target areas of Ghana where high levels of extreme poverty, in combination with deep-seated traditional and social norms exist, resulting in negative impacts on women and girls. STAGE target girls in these areas are highly vulnerable and systematically marginalized due to factors such as early marriage, pregnancies, disabilities, and others.

Under the STAGE project, a consortium led by WEI with experienced downstream local NGO partners, which include Afrikids, Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems, Pronet, Link Community Development, Prolink, Ghana Red Cross, Olinga Foundation, and the International Child Development Programme, will work together to improve LEARNING outcomes in numeracy, literacy, and life skills, and to establish relevant and appropriate partnerships and pathways for the successful TRANSITION of 20,000 girl beneficiaries between 10 and 19 years old. The program aims to leverage the experience of its partners, utilize lessons from previous projects, and engage stakeholders at all levels to guide Ghana to the SUSTAINABILITY of outcomes achieved which improve the lives of its highly marginalized girls.

Key activities of the STAGE project have been included to address the aforementioned outcomes of learning, transition, and long-term sustainability. With each cohort of beneficiaries, the intervention begins with a focus on literacy, numeracy, and life skills through accelerated learning programs to get girls on track for transition into either a formal education, a vocational learning opportunity, or some form of employment.

Teachers and facilitators will be trained in gender sensitive inclusive strategies and provided with curricula and supporting materials to meet the diverse needs of the girls.

The project will collaborate closely with partners such as the Girls Education Unit and Special Education Unit of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to develop basic training modules and teaching and learning materials to facilitate the adequate provision of support to marginalized subgroups of girls, such as those with disabilities. The project will simultaneously work to sensitize communities and advocate at a national policy level to challenge contextual barriers affecting girls education.

In order to do this, STAGE will establish peer education models involving adolescent girls and boys as allies; work with youth and adult male-led community sensitization campaigns to promote positive behaviour change; and engage both the public and private sectors to provide opportunities beyond the learning programs. To complement the learning activities and address the many barriers girls face, STAGE will focus on reducing poverty in hard to reach communities through farming subsidies, provision of school kits, to help families afford the actual costs of supporting girls education while alleviating the burden of opportunity costs when they are enrolled.

STAGE includes a rigorous research design that will track participants and collect data alongside Ghana’s government agencies and external evaluators to understand how to effectively support the most highly marginalized girls, during and after the STAGE program.