by nowchar | Mar 26, 2015 | Education, FAWE, Female Empowerment, MasterCard Foundation
What career paths do young African girls have? For many across Sub-Saharan Africa, opportunities have been limited primarily to a life spent in poverty in the roles of mother and wife. But the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) is working with The MasterCard Foundation to increase educational chances for girls in villages across the continent. The 2008 recipient of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership, Fawe’s efforts (since its founding in 1992) have included an ongoing partnership with The MasterCard Foundation Scholar Program to provide scholarships in some of the neediest countries, such as Rwanda, and now that partnership is extending its support to Ethiopia with a new scholarship program. According to an announcement by Fawe, the MCF Scholars Program has been launched this month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and will provide comprehensive scholarship packages to some 800 young students. While Fawe has impacted the lives of an estimated 24 million school-age African girls over the past 23 years, the organization’s work with the MCF extends to school children of both genders as a way of improving the general welfare of all people in these towns and villages. The 800 Ethiopian awards will go to 600 girls and 200 boys as a part of the NGO’s mission to promote “gender equity and equality in Africa by fostering positive policies, practices, and attitudes towards girls’ education” by extending opportunities to all members of their communities. To read more about FAWE, visit the Kravis Prize...
by lwang | Feb 25, 2015 | AIL, Education, Kravis Prize, Sakena Yacoobi
In the pages of the Christian Science Monitor, Afghan Institute of Learning founder Sakena Yacoobi offers a passionate commentary about lowering the cultural barriers to educating women and girls with outreach that includes males, too. “The women who come to our centers feel the same way,” she says of AIL’s centers, whose health and education efforts were recognized with the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership in 2009. “Men and boys need to be educated, not ignored.” Development efforts in disadvantaged countries can cut two ways, especially when those efforts highlight and publicize one group to such a degree that another group feels forgotten. Yacoobi’s Monitor article, “In Afghanistan, teaching men that education is not a threat,” points out that while AIL’s work has focused on one specific segment, the actual goal is more universal, more all-embracing than her organization’s stated mission. “Educated, wise men,” she writes, thinking of her own father, who supported her pursuit of an education (she holds U.S. degrees from the University of the Pacific and Loma Linda University), “do not abuse women or children and recognize the worth and value of women and children.” Since AIL’s founding in 1995, the lives of more than 10 million people have been affected by the organization’s work. Yacoobi, however, acknowledges that this impact must be broader, and more inclusive, as she shares in the following anecdote, which is included in the Monitor article: One day in early 2002, I went with my female staff to visit one of our Women’s Learning Centers in rural Kabul. Suddenly a group of teenage boys with weapons appeared, blocking the...
by nowchar | Feb 11, 2015 | Education, Kravis Prize, Poverty Reduction, Pratham
Are education efforts and outreach to children in rural India producing positive results? The answer is both encouraging and troubling, according to NGO Pratham’s 10th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), released this week in New Delhi. “While more than 96 percent of children in the 6-14 age group are attending school,” reports Indian media site IBN, Pratham’s analysis suggests that “there are still some worrying signs as reading and mathematical abilities are still not up to the mark.” Pratham was honored in 2010 with the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership for its literacy efforts throughout the country, particularly the program Read India, which has reached more than 34 million children. But as the organization’s latest ASER indicates, much work remains to be done even though the report presents substantial success. Among the findings announced this week: for the 6-14 age group, the percentage of children enrolled in schools across the nation remains at more than 96% for the sixth year in a row; the percentage of children not enrolled for that age group is 3.3% in older age groups, particularly for 15- and 16-year-olds, the number of children not enrolled in school jumps to much higher percentages: 15.9% for boys, 17.3% for girls simple reading and basic arithmetic skills continue to be “a serious and major source of concern,” with increases in various age groups of children struggling with number and character recognition daily attendance percentages for primary and upper primary schools continue to climb, which is a hopeful sign, as are improvements in facilities (availability of clean drinking water, toilets, equipment) which is improving the...
by nowchar | Nov 5, 2014 | Community Development, Education, FAWE, Female Empowerment, Kravis Prize
Educational materials in Kenyan classrooms still portray old stereotypes of “boys as heroes and girls as weak,” says the executive director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). “The current methods of teaching carry a lot of gender bias to the boy,” FAWE Executive Director Hendrina Doroba told the Kenyan newspaper The Star in a recent interview. Doroba outlined the efforts of FAWE, which is the 2008 recipient of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership, to empower school-age girls across the African continent. That includes depictions of women in picture- and textbooks, which FAWE has been able to address thanks to several successful partnerships. “We engaged with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development … vigorously and they looked at removing some of the pictures and set up a committee to ensure books are gender responsive,” Doroba explained. The organization has also teamed up with teachers to “improve their gender pedagogical skills” as well as their awareness and compassion for the circumstances of young female students. Founded in 1992, FAWE’s mission has been to educate and empower an estimated 24 million school-age women in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past 22 years, FAWE has expanded its operations into 32 African countries. Despite the organization’s progress, however, Doroba acknowledged that there is still much work to do, many obstacles to confront that are not always obvious. Schoolbook gender bias, for example, can be very subtle even though it leads to more disruptive situations, including school-related gender violence, she said. Doroba’s interview with The Star also reports on the organization’s other efforts to improve educational opportunities. Such improvements are not...
by lwang | Jun 17, 2014 | Education, Entrepreneurship, Kravis Prize, Sakena Yacoobi
“Mission creep” is a pervasive and extremely debilitating problem that afflicts all too many nonprofit organizations. According to presenters Kim Starkey Jonker and William F. Meehan III, it is the No. 1 reason why nonprofits fail to achieve the impact for beneficiaries that they desire. Yet mission creep is easily preventable and easily curable. By attacking it head-on, nonprofit leaders can not only prevent suboptimal performance, but also open the way to taking on outsized challenges. Learn how to take your organization to a higher level by joining Jonker and Meehan—along with guest presenter Sakena Yacoobi—for a discussion of organizational mission. In this webinar, Jonker and Meehan will expand on their Stanford Social Innovation Review articles “Mission Matters Most” and “Curbing Mission Creep.” Jonker and Meehan will discuss the countless external and internal pressures that cause mission creep, and they will present tools for counteracting these pressures. Recognizing that mission statements are one of the most useful (but most underused) tools available to any nonprofit, Jonker and Meehan will also outline seven characteristics of an effective mission statement. In addition, they will discuss ways to build a mission-focused organizational culture. Webinar registrants will have the opportunity to ask Jonker, Meehan, and Yacoobi questions during the last 20 minutes of the webinar, which will be moderated by Michael Slind, senior editor of SSIR. This complimentary webinar is for anyone in the social sector—nonprofit management and staff, board members, funders—anyone who seeks to create, support, and grow an organization that can align its mission with its efforts to increase impact for beneficiaries. Thanks to the generosity of the Henry R. Kravis...
by lwang | May 16, 2014 | Community Development, Education, FAWE, Female Empowerment
Why is 1,200 a magic number? Because it refers to all of the young Rwandan women from vulnerable families who will have a chance to finish their schooling thanks to a project co-created by the Rwandan Chapter of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). The 2008 recipient of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership, FAWE started in the early 1990s when the female ministers of education in five African countries decided that more education advocacy was needed on behalf of women across the continent. FAWE’s inception in five countries has grown to 32 African countries today. This month FAWE’s Rwanda chapter in collaboration with the Canadian MasterCard Foundation has launched The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme to enable as many as 1,200 schoolgirls to continue their educations through the elementary, secondary, and university levels. Already, in the weeks since the scholars program began, some 200 school-age women have been enrolled in the program, according to a report featured in The New Times of Kigali. Eugénie Mukanoheli, the Rwanda chapter’s coordinator, said a similar project will soon be operating in Ethiopia as well. “The idea is to keep as many girls as possible in school,” she told The New Times. “The scholars will have everything they need to study comfortably… but the beneficiaries must be schoolgirls who are academically bright but from vulnerable families.” When the new program is fully operational, organizers plan to identify potential candidates across the country, including at least ten selected high schools. *** In a related story: 15 girls in a FAWE secondary school in Sierra Leone have also received scholarship assistance that will ensure...
