Projects are listed by award date. Alternatively, list projects by title.
USAID/APRENDER A LER (Learn to Read): Mozambique Early Grade Reading Project
Since 1992, following a long colonial period, a 10-year war for independence, and 16 years of civil war, the government of Mozambique has been rebuilding and improving its educational system, and access to primary education has expanded extremely rapidly. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of children in primary school increased from 3.3 million to 5.3 million at an average growth rate of 8 percent per year. This rapid expansion has placed a large burden an already struggling system resulting in double and triple shift schools, too few qualified teachers, and an overburden on school and district managers, among other critical challenges.
With funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),and in response to USAID’s “All Children Reading” Strategy, World Education is implementing the USAID / Aprender a Ler (ApaL) – Learn to Read – project from 2012 to 2016. The primary focus of the project is to improve reading outcomes for students in grades 2-3 in over 1,000 urban and rural schools in the Zambezia and Nampula provinces of Mozambique through a two-fold approach: increasing the quality of reading instruction through production, distribution and training in the application of reading instruction materials and training and coaching methodologies; and increasing the quantity of reading instruction through strengthening school management and institutional capacity building at school,district, and provincial levels.
To achieve these goals, USAID / Aprender a Ler will 1) train over 5,000 teachers in early grade reading instruction and continuous learning assessment in reading and over 1,000 school-based directors in school management to increase classroom reading time; 2) develop high-quality reading and instructional materials for students and teachers; and 3) design and adapt summative and formative assessment instruments to measure improvements in reading ability, instruction quality, and school management skills.
Working together with local partner Universidade Politecnica and international partner, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), World Education will ensure strong collaboration with local education institutions at the national, provincial, and district levels to strengthen education policies and management capacity. Working closely with local counterparts will contribute towards long-term program sustainability as World Education works to hand over project implementation to the Ministry of Education in Mozambique.
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Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (Phase III)
The World Cocoa Foundation Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (WCF ECHOES) Alliance is a public-private partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and WCF member companies. The alliance aims to strengthen cocoa-growing communities by expanding opportunities for youth and young adults through relevant education in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
The ECHOES III Project enhances the components of basic education, youth livelihoods and innovative activities. The basic education component provides teacher training in early grade reading instruction and evaluation, formal school re-enrollment support to out-of-school teens, functional literacy training for adults, and resource centers to cocoa farming communities. ECHOES III includes an inter-generational literacy program in Ghana, as well as after-school reading support to primary school students in both countries. Under the youth livelihoods component, both in-school and out of-school youth participate in a vocational agriculture and youth leadership education program.
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Strengthening Local Government and Community Systems for Orphans and Vulnerable Children
Situated between the Lake Victoria crescent and the Kyoga plains, the East Central districts of Uganda are characterized by largely rural populations engaged in crop and livestock farming, while sizeable fishing communities are also prevalent along the shores of Lake Victoria, Lake Kyoga, Lake Nakuwa, and the Nile River. According to the Uganda Human Development Report (2007), the human poverty index of the East Central zone ranges from a high of 32.3% in Bugiri district to 18.2% in Mukono district. Against this backdrop, poverty plays a particularly sustaining role in child vulnerability and has been identified as a major challenge for OVC households in the region.
World Education Bantwana Initiative's Technical Service Organization (TSO) project, under an agreement with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and on behalf of the Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD), strengthens district and sub-county government and community-level capacity to improve holistic service delivery for OVC in the East Central zone of Uganda. The project improves local government and community mechanisms to plan, manage, and scale-up social protection services for OVC. Meanwhile, it aims to strengthen coordination and integration among stakeholders and across sectors, build capacity of community structures for resource mobilization and sustainability, build technical and management capacity, and establish data collection and usage to inform planning processes and decision making.
TSO has supported the roll out of key MGLSD policies and strategies, information systems, and a child status index tool. In addition, it has conducted community mapping of OVC in all East Central districts and provided technical support to key OVC service providers and government stakeholders.
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Western Uganda Bantwana Program (WUBP)
Uganda is home to nearly 21 million adolescents who make up more than 60% of the entire population. Due to war, poverty, and high rates of death due to AIDS, Uganda is also home to over 1 million orphans. In Western Uganda, there are high numbers of OVC particularly in Kyenjojo, Kasese, and Kabarole districts. This region has large numbers of vulnerable children due to civil strife in the Eastern Congo, which has spilled across the border, as well as high HIV rates in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which borders this region. As a result, there is a significant school dropout rate and a growing problem with child labor, with children being recruited to work in plantations, lime mines, and quarries. Girls especially are likely to drop out of school and there is a high incidence of forced marriage. In addition, many children experience violence in school settings, often at the hands of teachers. Few children have access to any support; many are abused and denied their basic rights as children.
Since 2008, the Western Uganda Bantwana Program (WUBP) has built the technical and management capacity of nine local community based organizations to improve the wellbeing of 5,000 vulnerable children and their households through delivering a holistic package of services including: child rights and protection - including upholding girls' right to education - HIV prevention, nutrition, economic strengthening, and psychosocial support. In 55 schools (40 primary and 15 secondary) in four districts, Bantwana has established child rights clubs through which students are trained as child rights leaders in promoting their own rights and responsibilities. In close collaboration with four district governments, WUBP has provided disadvantaged youth with other innovative platforms - including radio programs and youth forums - for expressing their views and participating in the decision-making affecting them. WUBP has demonstrated increasing evidence that Bantwana's model improves child protection outcomes for girls and boys.
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COCOALINK
Farmers in remote locations do not always receive the farmer extension services provided by the local government because of the limited reach of the extension services and inability of these farmers to access the services. In response, World Education – with funding support from Hershey’s and World Cocoa Foundation – developed CocoaLink, which uses mobile technology to communicate practical, timely, and important agricultural and social information to cocoa farmers in Ghana. Through Cocoalink, farmer extension services are delivered to cocoa farmers through a cost-effective and feasible mechanism that enables cocoa farmers to request and obtain timely farming, social, health, and marketing information to improve their incomes and livelihoods.
By December 2012, the program had reached more than 9,700 cocoa farmers across five of the six cocoa-growing regions in Ghana and is estimated to reach over 100,000 cocoa farmers by 2014. Furthermore, the project pilots a mobile phone-based monitoring system to track, analyze, and share improvements and results across communities. This program is also expected to expand to Cote d’Ivoire in Spring 2013.
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Women's Leadership: Civic Leadership and Journalism
This two-year, USAID-funded project in Senegal's Thiès region is strengthening the presence and voice of women in the media as a way to develop community-level leadership roles for Senegalese women. The program draws upon the popularity of community radio in Senegal and uses it to deliver messages and spread awareness about women's rights. The program targets 13 rural communities, comprised of 543 villages that are home to approximately 360,000 people.
World Education is coordinating with two Senegalese NGOs, the Rural Association Against AIDS (ARLS) and Information and Training of Community Radios (INFORMORAC), to provide women with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to serve as journalists/broadcasters, and works with radio managers to ensure that women are frequently featured as broadcasters/hosts, guest speakers, and key experts in community radio, as well as in management positions. In addition, Women's Leadership is training station managers and broadcasters about program formatting and gender themes to make sure that radio programming is infused with gender-equitable messages.
Complementing these efforts, World Education has established facilitated community listening groups that meet regularly to reflect on the radio programming and explore women's rights, particularly gender equity and women's leadership. Women's Leadership is also building local organizations' capacity to promote women's leadership at the community level.
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Empowering and Mobilizing People Living with HIV (EMPower)
Supporting most at-risk populations to take HIV preventative measures
In Ghana, stigmatization of most at risk populations, such as males having sex with males or female commercial sex workers, prevents the most at-risk populations from accessing and receiving support on HIV prevention. The USAID-funded EMPower program (Empowering and Mobilizing People Living with HIV) will address this gap by working closely with local Ghanaian HIV&AIDS support groups to actively participate in HIV prevention efforts and access the treatment, care, and support services that they need.
Using a participatory approach, EMPower engaged national level HIV/AIDS support networks to build up and train the local level support groups to better serve their members. A major component of EMPower was the advocacy and awareness-raising activities, which involved the use of a bulk text messaging campaign. Using bulk text messaging, EMPower was able to confidentially communicate important HIV prevention and treatment messages to subscribers.
It is estimated that over 3,500 people living with HIV benefited from EMPower through capacity building efforts with the support groups and 507 bulk message campaign subscribers regularly benefited from the SMS text messages.
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Pamoja Tuwalee
Tanzania's child population is extremely large, with more than half of the total population--roughly 21 million--under the age of 18. Approximately two million are classified as most vulnerable children (MVC), and 40% are estimated to be orphans as a result of AIDS. MVC in Tanzania are typically cared for by a surviving parent, extended family members, or older children in child-headed households. In many cases, these caregivers are themselves vulnerable. Nationally, more than a third of MVC live below the basic needs poverty line.
Despite significant strides made on behalf of these children in the national policy arena, much remains to be done to adequately support them. Weak government infrastructure and coordination with stakeholders, chronic human resource gaps, and a dearth of services in rural communities (where more than 80% of the population lives) impede efforts to support MVC and their households with the full range of comprehensive care they need.
More than 220,000 MVC have been identified in the northern regions of Tanzania, the majority of which are adolescents, ages 15-17 years old. Through Pamoja Tuwalee ("Let us bring up our children together" in Swahili), World Education's Bantwana Initiative will work at the community level to build the skills, networks, linkages, and referrals necessary to create an integrated network of essential service provision for vulnerable children and families in the Manyara, Tanga, Kilimanjaro, and Arusha regions of northern Tanzania.
World Education is committed to using child-focused, community-driven, comprehensive programming that addresses children's needs, and incorporates cutting edge technical innovations while valuing the unique contributions of resourceful community responses. In support of this effort, Pamoja Tuwalee will improve the coordination and functioning of local government authorities (LGAs), reinvigorate or establish village level Most Vulnerable Children Committees (MVCCs), and promote greater vertical and horizontal integration of key ministries charged with support for OVC.
The model for World Education's MVC Coordinated Care project includes:
* Building the capacity of NGO partners to improve and expand high quality comprehensive care
* Using schools as platforms for integrated service provision
* Mobilizing communities to reach large numbers of children and households in rural areas with comprehensive, essential services, and
* Working with the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) and local MVCCs to develop a cadre of desperately needed, skilled village-based social workers.
World Education will use this model to strengthen the following key elements of comprehensive care MVC need:
* Food security/nutrition
* Household-centered livelihoods
* Education
* Primary healthcare and HIV prevention, care, and treatment
* Child protection
* Psychosocial support
* Legal support for birth certificates & inheritance rights
* Adolescent-friendly services
All efforts will be linked and coordinated with MVCC and LGA activities at the village and district levels.
Pamoja Tuwalee is a five-year project funded by USAID in the northern regions of Tanzania. World Education implements the project in collaboration with John Snow, Inc. through the Bantwana Initiative.
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Ghana Focus Region Health Project (FRHP)
While Ghana's health status has improved in recent years, many challenges remain. More than 100,000 children under five die each year, accounting for more than half of all deaths. Maternal mortality and morbidity are high due to lack of skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetric care, unsafe abortions and poor quality post abortion care, and low use of contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies. Malaria is endemic nationwide, contributing to poverty, low productivity, and reduced school attendance, and HIV infection is on the rise among at-risk populations such as sex workers and men who have sex with men (MSM), contributing to 24,000 new infections per year.
The USAID-funded Ghana Focus Region Health Project (FRHP) is a four-year integrated maternal, newborn, child health, and family planning (MNCH/FP) project that aims to improve the health status of communities in three focus regions of Ghana (Greater Accra, Central, and Western Regions). FRHP increases access to and use of key, high-quality MNCH/FP services, as well as improves the management and health systems performance in these regions and districts. FRHP also works with the GHS in sub-districts, districts, and regions to form deep connections to civil society, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), communities, and the private sector to improve health for all members of the community.
FRHP is implemented by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., in partnership with World Education, Inc. World Education provides expertise to manage FRHP pre-service and in-service training improvement activities, strengthens community-based health planning services (CHPS) strategy implementation activities in specified areas, and defines plans to improve participation of the private sector in MNCH/FP, supply chain, and health financing improvement.
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Peace in the Casamance
After 29 years of internal conflict, Senegal's Casamance region experienced a brief cessation of violence with the fragile 2004 Peace Agreement. In 2010, this period of peace was interrupted by a new outbreak of violence reflected both in attacks on travelers on main highways and in villages, and in clashes between the Senegalese army and combatants from the opposition group, Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance. While underlying unemployment, poverty, poor social services and land tenure issues challenge the realization of long-term progress, community-level antagonism and inequalities remain the largest obstacles to reconciliation in this region. The latest attacks and clashes signal the urgency of renewed efforts for appropriate and targeted peace interventions to guard against intensifying conflict and sustain ongoing peacebuilding activities.
Peace in the Casamance is a two-year USAID-funded initiative aimed at reducing the threat of conflict and promoting peaceful resolution of differences among and between communities in the three regions of the Casamance: Ziguinchor, Sedhiou and Kolda. To achieve this goal, the program supports collaborative community initiatives that bring people together to promote mutual understanding and reduce risk of violence; strengthens the capacity of civil society and local authorities to plan and problem-solve using conflict transformation techniques; and harnesses mass media and key opinion leaders to influence attitudes and perceptions about forgiveness and reconciliation. A central strategy of the program is to establish and train Peace Committees in target communities to strengthen social cohesion within and between communities and support peace and reconciliation activities. Peace Committees will work to foster relationships between groups and between individuals that are built upon consensus, dialogue, cultural norms, and non-violent resolution of differences values largely destroyed during the conflict. Social cohesion is often one of the first things to disappear during conflict and one of the last and most difficult things to reconstruct. The Committees will play a vital role in this process by assuming responsibility to facilitate and supervise targeted forgiveness and reconciliation activities between mandated community and opinion leaders and village leaders, religious and traditional authorities. In addition, the Committees are supported in organizing various community events, such as community cultural weekends; traditional rites ceremonies for peace; trans-border dialogues; and an international youth festival that further foster social cohesion and contribute to the restoration of peace.
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Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (ECHOES)
Expanding opportunities for youth in literacy and basic education
World Education joined the World Cocoa Foundation ECHOES (Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions) Phase II consortium to address the education needs in targeted cocoa communities in Ghana, specifically in the Sefwi-Wiawso region. Through an integrated adult and teen literacy program, World Education contributed to the increased participation of community members in education and the improved economic well-being of these communities.
In total, at least 696 adults benefited from ECHOES II’s adult literacy program, and more than 350 out of school teens have completed the teen literacy program. More than 200 of the out of school teens completing the teen literacy program were re-enrolled into a local school and provided with some school supplies for encouragement and motivation.
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UNICEF Basic and Equitable Education Program - Phase II
In agreement with the Government of Mali, UNICEF initiated a program to entrust to local CBOs and NGOs the implementation of activities for which the Malian Department for Education has limited skills and resources. These activities include support for community participation in the development of basic education, community activities to support girls' education and gender equity, and capacity building of members of community-based educational organizations - namely school management committees and father's and mother's associations - in the development and implementation of school projects. It is in this context that World Education was chosen by the Malian Ministry of Education and UNICEF to implement activities around the following three components in the Koulikoro and Ségou regions: Subcomponent E01 (Enlightenment and Development of Young Children), sub-component E02 (Basic Education), and subcomponent EO3 (Nonformal Education). World Education is integrating these three components within and across villages, in a methodology which has come to be known as the "village trilogy."
World Education, leveraging its expertise in community involvement, knowledge of the implementation regions, and experience in working with state officials, local authorities and other partners involved in the education community, is implementing activities around the following services: - Provision of financial and material assistance (funds to conduct IGAS and provision of teaching materials and school supplies) to reduce the financial burden of families in the education of girls and boys in school and the skills development of adolescents and out of school teens;
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Educational support for remedial training and monitoring of student attendance; and
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Support for improved educational environments through community organization and mobilization, as well as sensitization of parents and communities to critical issues such as: STDs, HIV&AIDS, child rights, girls' education, capacity development of AMEs, creation village libraries, literacy and linkages between communities.
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Strengthening TB and HIV & AIDS Responses in East-Central Uganda (STAR-EC)
Uganda has a population of 28 million people, with 85% living in rural areas. The country has had considerable success in reducing HIV prevalence over the past 15 years; however, despite successes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the decline in prevalence has stagnated over the past five years and no longer shows a downward tendency. In partnership with the Government of Uganda and the Ministry of Health, USAID and PEPFAR are supporting access to HIV and AIDS and TB prevention, care and treatment services through a John Snow, Inc.-led consortium.
As a part of this consortium, the Bantwana Initiative of World Education, Inc. focuses on increasing referrals and strengthening networks to improve accessibility to comprehensive TB, HIV and AIDS services. Bantwana achieves this by building partnerships across service providers in East Central Uganda and encouraging meaningful involvement of PLHIV in planning and management of HIV and TB services. Bantwana also strengthens the capacity of civil society partners to deliver quality services and strengthens collaboration between decentralized HIV coordination structures to enable effective coordination.
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Guinea Brighter Futures (Community Partnerships for Peace - P.C. Paix)
Reducing tensions in the most conflict-prone region of Guinea
While working in the Forest Region of Guinea (in the prefectures of N'Zérékoré, Macenta, and Lola), World Education reduced the threat or impact of violent conflict and promoted peaceful resolution of differences. The Forest Region is one of the most violent and conflict-susceptible regions of Guinea because of its rich agricultural and mineral resources and proximity to war-ridden countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Cote d’Ivoire. With the elevated presence of refugees, immigrants from other countries and regions of Guinea, and foreign mining companies, the Forest Region has witnessed many conflicts over the past few decades, in particular. Under a cooperative agreement with USAID/ Conflict Mitigation and Management, World Education carried out the Community Partnerships for Peace, aka P.C. Paix, focusing on four main objectives: 1) To strengthen traditional community structures and resolve and mitigate conflicts through transparent and inclusive actions, 2) To reinforce the capacity of youth associations and young people to promote a culture of non-violence, cooperation and transparency, 3) promote inter-group dialogue and reconciliation at community levels, and 4) document and disseminate lessons learned and best practices for sustainability. Over the course of the program, multiple success stories were collected about how the P.C.Paix program directly contributed to the resolution of inter-village conflicts, including those that were instigated before the project existed.
At project end, a final evaluation was conducted by an external evaluation team. Overall, the final evaluation concluded that P.C.Paix effectively garnered community participation and support for conflict mitigation and management activities.
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SELECT (Stop Exploitive Labor and Education Children for Tomorrow)
World Education surpasses expectations while combating exploitative child labor and trafficking in Guinea
One of the most pressing issues facing Africa is exploitative child labor and child trafficking. In 2010, the Ministry of Planning in Guinea estimated that 66% of rural children aged 7-14 and 91% aged 15-19 are engaged in some form of labor. Since exploitative child labor and trafficking are interlinked problems, trafficking is pervasive in Guinea. The US Department of Labor awarded World Education the Stop Exploitative Labor and Educate Children for Tomorrow (SELECT) program to combat exploitative child labor and trafficking in Guinea. World Education, as the prime, led a consortium that included two other international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and six local NGOs to identify and withdraw at-risk and victim children, place these children into educational programs, mobilize communities to promote child protection – specifically relating to exploitative child labor and trafficking – and galvanize national efforts to address exploitative child labor and trafficking in Guinea.
By project end, SELECT successfully achieved projected objectives, identifying and withdrawing 5,322 at-risk children and 4,497 victim children, and indirectly benefited more than 12,000 students through school infrastructure projects. SELECT’s mid-term evaluation, which was conducted by an US Department of Labor-hired external evaluator concluded that SELECT was a successful program despite the political instability of the country beginning in the program’s first year of implementation.
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Combating Exploitive Human Trafficking through Education and Civic Participation in Guinea (PROTEGE)
Protecting women and children in Guinea from Human Trafficking and Exploitative Labor Practices
The US Department of State awarded World Education a 2-year grant to contribute to the fight against global trafficking in persons (G/TIP). In Guinea, human trafficking, especially of children, prevails in several forms due to extreme poverty, porous borders and poor basic services provided in education social affairs, security and justice. Focusing primarily in the prefectures of Kindia and Forecariah and Guinea's capital city, Conakry, PROTEGE worked towards and achieved the following results: 1) Improved access to quality education for vulnerable children and victims of trafficking, 2) Increased awareness of grassroots organizations, local elected officials, and religious leaders about the importance of education and the negative effects of child trafficking, 3) Strengthened capacity and collaboration of partner organizations to fight against child trafficking, 4) Strengthened documentation and dissemination of lessons learned and results of action-research on child trafficking, and 5) Establishment of female domestic workers' association for protection and awareness raising in favor of female domestic workers. Through its participatory approach and partnership with the grassroots structures and local leaders, PROTEGE identified 853 children who were either vulnerable or victim of child trafficking. Among the identified children, 225 of them were successfully integrated into schools, second chance centers, or village-based child protection centers.
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Girls' Improved Learning Outcomes (GILO)
Girls' Improved Learning Outcomes (GILO) is a three-year project which aims to increase the educational enrollment and achievement of girls in basic, primary and preparatory schools in Egypt. World Education, Inc. (WEI) plays a lead technical role in the GILO consortium led by RTI that works with multiple stakeholders to support the implementation of Egypt's strategy of School Based Reform (SBR) in local communities and idarras, chiefly in Upper Egypt. The key stakeholders of GILO include: teachers, board of trustees, school administrators and supervisors, students, parents, community representatives, and the staff of concerned government agencies at district, governorate and national levels.
WEI's role through GILO is to expand equitable access to and coverage of K-9 education for children, especially girls, and to improve school management and administration and broaden community participation in education to ensure accountability for quality improvements at the school level. More specifically, WEI provides communities with the wherewithal to expand girls' access; raise instructional quality; improve school management, leadership and administration; and sustain quality improvements at the school level through innovative school expansion programs that introduce alternative construction, maintenance, and expansion solutions such as add-on classrooms, community/school-based maintenance programs through School Self Assessment (SSA) and School Improvement Plans (SIPs), and multi-grade classrooms. (For more information on our SSA/SIP approach, check out our WEI-produced short docu-film on School Improvement Planning).
A key strategy of WEI is to build capacity of school Board of Trustees (BOTs) and social work supervisors to provide good governance and accountability to schools for self-improvement and education reform, especially in the area of expansion of girls' access and participation. Through GILO, WEI has worked with communities where BOTs are weak to establish Community Education Teams (CETs) as a sub-committee of the Board of Trustees (BOT) to collect school and community data and conduct Participatory Situational Analyses (PSAs) to determine community and school conditions, public concerns about education, and challenges and priorities in regards to girls' enrollment and achievement in schools. To date GILO has trained approximately 100 CETs, over half of project target numbers. In addition, GILO has worked with GILO target communities and schools to establish and mobilize each school's BOT through democratic elections and increased women's participation and leadership. By fall 2009, fully 27% of all newly elected members are now women.
Strengthening local capacity and fostering self-reliance through a trainer of trainers (TOT) approach is central to WEI programs worldwide. WEI has employed this approach in GILO by building capacity of district and school social workers through TOTs to train BOT members from on roles and responsibilities and capacity building for good governance in schools. In addition, WEI has trained selected administrators, Ministry of Education (MOE) advisors, and senior teachers through TOTs in effective school leadership and management for school administrators from GILO-supported schools. WEI supports and builds sustainability for school governance and leadership trainings by working with schools to provide technical support in the use of data for decision making, including planning for the establishment of school management information systems for over all project-supported schools.
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Girls' Education and Community Participation (CAEF)
World Education, Inc. (WEI) is supporting the Benin government's goals to improve access to and the quality of education to students (especially girls) in the most disadvantaged areas in educational terms in Benin. Girls' Education and Community Participation (CAEF in French), a project funded by USAID, involves work at 750 schools in 14 districts of the country. A key strategy in reaching these goals in very diverse settings is to involve the communities to the maximum extent possible.
CAEF aims to increase girls' access to education through increased community participation, with a strong emphasis on increasing women's participation and leadership. As a core strategy of this project, CAEF has facilitated the organization of more than 665 school mothers' associations (AME in French). AMEs are comprised of school mothers and other community women, and are a sub-group of the male-dominated school parents' associations (APE in French). Mothers are traditionally responsible for educating the young children in Benin, but in the past they have been largely excluded from the decision-making process in school management. Through WEI's work with AMEs, women have gained a strong voice and support from APEs to improve the learning environment, monitor student progress, and establish collaborative relationships with the local teachers. CAEF is building on WEI's AME work by helping AMEs to lobby APEs to address challenges for girls for school action plans and to undertake activities such as building crêches (pre-schools) that help alleviate the need to draw older daughters out of school to look after the young children; organizing city trips to retrieve youngsters who've been taken out of school to become vidomégan (usually domestic servants or market sellers for wealthy and middle-class families) and return them to school; and fighting against forced marriage, child rape, and other abuses. CAEF is also promoting AMEs to undertake a revision of outdated statutes, and to lobby government authorities on issues relating to girls' education in particular, and education in general.
CAEF also works closely with other major international organizations such as UNICEF, SNV, PLAN, and AIDE ET ACTION, as well as key national stakeholders (MOE, NGOs, and village-level community groups) to complement programs and establish strong buy-in for the project. Collaboration has included a national workshop, a presentation for International Women's Day in Kalalé, radio broadcasts in local languages (including a CAEF-sponsored national radio/TV debate on violence in schools), and site visits to various girls' education projects to share lessons learned and to strategize for future interventions. CAEF is also working in collaboration with ministry officials and its partner NGO, OSV-Jordan, to organize a march and public discussion of AIDS in far northern Benin (Malanville-Karimama) to correspond with International AIDS Day. Finally, CAEF has worked successfully with the Council of Imams in northern Benin to discuss strategies to improve access to education by girls from Muslim communities.
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Children First
Children First is a five-year program funded by USAID that mitigates the impact of HIV and AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe by developing, implementing, and improving proven models for care and support of vulnerable children. Children First is committed to the use of child-focused, community-driven comprehensive programming that addresses children's needs and incorporates cutting edge technical innovations while valuing the unique contributions of resourceful, creative community responses.
Under the five-year strategic vision for the program, Children First established the following strategic objectives: 1) build on the strength of current programming by more established NGOs and help bring their programs to greater scale; 2) give direct care and support to local groups by providing assistance in program design and delivery, technical training and ongoing organizational strengthening; and 3) reach orphans and vulnerable children.
World Education is implementing Children First in collaboration with John Snow, Inc. through their Bantwana Initiative
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Community Radio Network
Following on the creation of six community radios in the Casamance built and managed by World Education and financed by individual donors, the Community Radio Network aims to both increase the number of radio stations in the network to ten and to support the network to become a central vehicle for coordinated operations, social and economic development and the promotion of peace in the Casamance.
Through this project, World Education is providing development support for the nascent Radio Network, support and technical assistance to each of the radios, helping to maintain and strengthen the current radio content focus on women and women's rights, and helping with the sustainability of the radios within the network.
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Girls 1st
In Sub-Saharan Africa, rates of HIV infection for women are double that of men. Poverty, high rates of illiteracy, low social status and cultural norms that marginalize decision-making power of girls and women all contribute to the alarming rise of HIV infection, particularly among out-of-school adolescent girls living in rural areas who, due to reasons of abject poverty, are extremely vulnerable to sexual exploitation as a matter of survival. Yet, they are also Africa's future. Without adequate investments in skill building to prevent HIV, increased confidence and support for decisionmaking, and relevant vocational skills, girls have few opportunities to unleash their potential and make important contributions to their families, their communities, and their country.
Girls 1st is a community-based pilot initiative to prevent HIV by equipping the most at-risk girls with essential knowledge of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STI), developing their trade skills and market awareness, and empowering them with leadership and confidence to make healthy life choices on their own.
The program is implemented by World Education and Ghana Red Cross/Eastern Region in partnership with local communities with funding from the M*A*C AIDS Fund.
Read the following success story about the project: Educating Girls about HIV through Peer Leadership
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Community Action for Education and Literacy Project (ACEB)
The forest region in Eastern Guinea is historically one of the least developed in the country. In spite of the rich natural resources and growing economy, access to education and other necessities are limited.
The Community Involvement in Education and Literacy Project (ACEB) aims to improve the quality of life and opportunities for sustainable development in this region. Implemented in close collaboration with local NGO partners, ACEB extends pilot phase literacy activities to more of the Beyla, N'Zérékoré communities and incorporates post-literacy and initial French literacy programs.
The project reinforces the capacity of a host of local civil society associations to contribute to a culture of literacy, enhance economic opportunities, and to improve retention and pass rates at the secondary school level.
One aspect of ACEB is the implementation of a sustainable savings and revolving micro-credit fund, which is managed by trained Mothers' Associations. An innovation to the second phase of ACEB includes a change in the scholarship component to target secondary school students in Beyla. Finally, at the request of the funder, the Rio Tinto Group, the second phase will be expanded to include the three new communities of Nionsomoridou, Watefredou and Traorella.
The main goal of ACEB is that community-based organizations are able to identify and implement durable solutions to the development challenges they face in their everyday lives.
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Batonga
(2007 - 2010)
World Education partnered with Batonga Foundation, founded by Angelique Kidjo, the West African singer, songwriter, and UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassador. The program helped girls in Mali and Benin continue their education through middle school and beyond. Batonga education packages covered school fees, uniforms, and school supplies; after-school tutorials that helped girls improve their academic skills; and mentor programs that connected girls to volunteers in their communities who encouraged their successes and taught them about important personal health topics including how to prevent HIV. Batonga girls were graduates of the Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program in Benin and Mali. The program was implemented locally in partnership with nongovernmental organizations, parent groups (mothers in particular), as well as school administrators.
Watch a slide show that shows how Batonga helped girls in Mali and Benin improve their lives.
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Faisons Ensemble
Bringing the Values of Good Governance and Democracy into the villages of Guinea
Soon after the major political instability incident in January 2007, Faisons Ensemble was launched to address the country’s good governance and democracy issues. As a member of a consortium led by Research Triangle Institute, World Education played a vital role in the Faisons Ensemble participatory and grassroots level approach. World Education led Faison Ensemble’s NGO capacity building efforts in organizational development and management, including with the civil society organizations (community, regional and national levels). The goal of these efforts was to empower these organizations with the skills to hold their local and national governments accountable. Through functional literacy courses, community mobilization, and local media, World Education increased citizens’ access to information regarding their rights, roles, and responsibilities, especially in regards to social and government accountability. Specifically in the Education sector, World Education worked with the Ministry of Education to create a civic education curriculum for use in the public schools, and raised awareness in communities about the importance of transparency and fighting corruption within the schools and school system.
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Women's Literacy and Livelihoods Pilot
It is estimated that 81% of women in Guinea are illiterate, with the highest concentration of illiteracy in rural areas. The impact of these high illiteracy rates, particularly in Guinea's rural areas, is felt in numerous sectors including education, health, natural resource management and throughout the local economy. Rural women are particularly affected by illiteracy, which, combined with the lack of access to microcredit serves to deepen their vulnerability and marginalization. Approximately 70 to 80% of rural women in Guinea suffer serious financial difficulties and have no access to credit.
World Education's Women's Literacy and Livelihoods Project is a 14-month pilot designed to improve the well-being of rural Guinean women and their families through increased access to basic literacy and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods. The pilot integrates lessons learned from years of experience in Africa and Asia working with community-based organizations to create innovative tools and strategies that address critical needs for functional literacy and microenterprise.
Working with 10 women's groups in the Mamou region, the project aims to develop women's basic skills in literacy and livelihoods. Functional literacy training is held local-languages and integrates sustainable livelihoods and includes practical exercises, allowing participants to immediately use mathematics and microfinance skills learned in literacy sessions. To complement literacy training, women receive additional skill-training in locally relevant income generating activities and gain access to microcredit funds.
The pilot encourages sustainability by strengthening women's groups to manage literacy activities, sustain small savings programs and provide ongoing assistance to their members. As with many of World Education's programs, women receive cross-cutting training on HIV and AIDS and its impact on livelihoods and development.
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Promoting Peace Education in the Casamance
(2006 - 2009)
After 10 years of civil conflict in the southern Casamance region of Senegal, a fragile stability has developed in a community that is ready to embrace peace. Communities that were once separated from each other and tied up in a violent conflict are again coming together to rebuild their villages, region and society. An important step in the rebuilding process occurs in schools where students in the Casamance have a need to better understand how to resolve conflicts and get along with one another in an atmosphere of openness and nonviolence.
The Peace Education program aimed to teach peaceful means of cooperation, conflict resolution, and reconciliation to local primary school students and teachers while peace activities were organized within the larger community. Over a year and a half, World Education, funded by USAID, created a Peace Education course for students and faculty in 40 schools throughout the Casamance. In addition to the course, members of the local community joined with participating students and teachers in forming community-based peace committees that planned and oversaw various peace-related activities. The goal of this project was to introduce peaceful means of communication to members of the Casamance community, with an important focus on youth, as the area moved out of conflict and began rebuilding.
World Education successfully implemented Promoting Peace Education in the Casamance from 2006 to 2009. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
Learn about World Education's previous peace education work in the report: Building Peace and Prosperity in the Casamance
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Building the Capacity of Anglo Platinum's Business Support Centers for SMMEs
(2006 - 2007)
In South Africa, World Education is committed to the development of the micro-enterprise sector, particularly through building the capacity of local organisations, such as providers of financial and business development services.
World Education supported the development strategy, costing and program activities of seven business linkages centers in two Anglo Platinum (AP) mining areas, North West and Limpopo Provinces. Anglo Platinum's operations in these provinces grew exponentially, and many of the mining towns saw increased private investment and upgrading of infrastructure and resulting employment.
AP requested World Education to provide targeted support and capacity building to the seven centers as part of their service and outreach. The centers enable the centers to effectively address the goal of increasing local AP operation's outsourcing to SMMEs and historical disadvantaged business owners. The long term goal is that by supporting a pool of capable local SMMEs, these business service providers can be long-term vendors of suppliers to other mining houses, corporations, and government entities across a range of sectors.
World Education successfully implemented Building the Capacity of Anglo Platinum's Business Support Centers for SMMEs from 2006 to 2007. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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LINK II
(2006 - 2007)
World Education's LINK II Project (March 2006-March 2007) identified and developed markets for small and micro contractors in the construction, mining, and transport sectors, and simultaneously built their capacity and facilitates access to finance. LINK II bridged the gap between SMMEs and access to opportunities and resources through sustainable business linkages with key players in these three sectors. LINK II fostered WIN-WIN relationships that build on a successful track record of satisfied partners. LINK II was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through a grant from VEGA/SAAGA.
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Bantwana Initiative
The Bantwana Initiative of World Education, Inc. was launched in 2006 to address the growing crisis of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) and their households in sub-Saharan African countries with high HIV prevalence. In coordination with national and local government programs, Bantwana provides technical and management capacity building to community-based organizations (CBOs) helping vulnerable families access a comprehensive range of care and services. Bantwana's programs and partnerships affect positive change and a more supportive environment for vulnerable children, from the household to the policy level. Bantwana fosters lasting cooperation of key stakeholders--including government ministries, schools, civil society, local organizations, and traditional leaders--to ensure the continuity of best practices and community mobilization beyond the life of a particular project.
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Saving Women's Lives
(2005 - 2008)
In the rural areas outside of Thies, Senegal, women and girls are at extreme risk of contracting HIV due to a lack of information, high level of poverty, and women's transitory nature to and from urban areas to seek work. This frequent movement has brought HIV and AIDS into the area. World Education and ARLS, a federation of 150 local women associations with over 8,000 members, used a combination of training of HIV/AIDS trainers, inter-village action planning sessions, HIV information market stands, and village theater to provide women and adolescent girls with life-saving information to protect themselves and their families from HIV. World Education drew on its extensive and successful history helping women and adolescent girls take control of their lives by building the knowledge and confidence of local women's associations to lead the fight against HIV. Funded by the Tresorelle Foundation, a one year project acted as a pilot study and was then adapted for replication in other areas of Senegal. The project was expanded to include other high risk/high traffic areas and the introduction of a micro-credit component.
World Education successfully implemented Saving Women's Lives from 2005 to 2008. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Northern Mali Secondary Scholarship Program
(2005 - 2008)
The Northern Mali Secondary Scholarship Program supported girls who had successfully completed primary school to continue their education. The program provided scholarship support, linked girls with mentors, and worked with local mothers' associations to highlight the importance of girls' education across the greater community, including support from fathers, community and religious leaders, and government officials. The mothers' associations also played an important role in fostering a supportive environment for girls and encouraging their attendance. The World Ed Mali team aimed to root local support and ownership through strong networks of parents, local NGOs, and local businesses who helped to support girls' education in the community. World Education scholarships supported 620 secondary school girls in Northern Mali.
World Education successfully implemented the Northern Mali Secondary Scholarship Program from 2005 to 2008. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
Read the following success story about the program: Girls' Secondary Scholarship Program
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Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Child Trafficking in South Africa: Towards the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (TECL) Project
(2004 - 2005)
In today's South Africa, young people face a range of educational, physical, and emotional risks due to factors including the country's high HIV/AIDS rate, poverty, lack of educational opportunities, domestic and sexual abuse, violence, and stigma/discrimination -- along with a corresponding lack of effective social welfare support and advocacy for children and their families.
World Education, in partnership with Khulisa Management Services, managed the implementation of the research and design stages of the TECL Project. Work included in-depth research, analysis, and design of interventions to address these two worst forms of child labor.
The TECL project emerged out of consultations between the South African Department of Labour (DOL), other government agencies, and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The project was implemented under the Department of Labor with ILO financial support. A key project objective was to enhance existing knowledge and evidence on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) and Child Trafficking in South Africa. Additional aims were to develop a deeper understanding of causes and incidence of CSEC and trafficking, and to design relevant pilot programmes and models that could be replicated nationally or regionally.
World Education successfully implemented TECL for the U.S. Department of Labor from 2004 to 2005. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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School Cantines
(2004 - 2005)
Because effective schooling entails not just education but also proper attention to children's health, World Education partnered with the World Food Program to coordinate the operation of school cantines in Benin. World Education helped mother's associations and parent associations to manage the cantines while the World Food Program provided the food and national coordination. Women in particular took a lead role in managing food distribution, which built not only women's skills but also ensured a quality meal for children during the school day. This one year program was implemented in cooperation with Beninese non-governmental organizations.
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Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP)
(2004 - 2011)
Through schooling, children are equipped with skills that improve the quality of their lives. Skills such as reading and working with numbers as well as accurate information on health and science, provide opportunities to students that would otherwise not exist. Unfortunately, due to social, cultural, and financial constraints, access to primary and secondary schools for young girls in many African communities is restricted.
A program of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the President's Africa Education Initiative/Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program (AEI/AGSP) was implemented throughout Sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 - 2011. World Education managed the program in 13 West African countries in collaboration with local NGOs. The AEI/AGSP provided more then 188,000 scholarships to cover educational costs for 73,000 girls and boys who are economically disadvantaged, disabled, orphaned, and/or affected by HIV and AIDS. Many of the beneficiaries would otherwise be out of school, or at risk of dropping out.
In addition, each girl enrolled in the scholarship program was mentored and encouraged in her educational pursuits, while participating in activities that focused on HIV mitigation and prevention, and community participation and democracy.
World Education's AGSP programming represents a notable example of our well-known and recognized expertise in building the capacity of local community counterparts. Because grants to community organizations and NGOs play a significant role in World Education programs, in addition to our own strong internal systems for providing and monitoring sub-grants, World Ed trains local organizations in how to meet reporting requirements, draft and manage agreements, and monitor sub-grants. Via our NGO partners, we train sub-grant recipients in how to account for funds, ensuring transparency and accuracy in accounting. AGSP was an excellent example of this since it is implemented through sub-grants to over 41 local NGO partners in 13 countries in West Africa. World Ed worked with these 42 NGOs partners to provide scholarship and mentorship support, such that the NGOs not only delivered their technical services, but also maintained records and reports that meet USAID standards. Sagefox Consulting Group, LLC, the M&E subcontractor on AGSP, maintained the program database, FieldLink.
Read the following success stories about the project:
Educating and Inspiring Girls in Africa
On the Frontlines of Girls' Education
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Decreasing Gender and Geographic Disparities in Education in Mali
(2004 - 2005)
In Mali, as in many other African contexts, there exist many cultural and social constraints that significantly hinder girls' advancement and success in school. One major barrier is finding the financial means to pay for girls' continued schooling. Another barrier is providing girls the scholastic support and role models necessary to help them cope with challenges they face in their communities and at school.
Targeting girls in the northern regions of Gao, Kidal, and Tombouctou, the project Decreasing Gender and Geographic Disparities in Education in Mali provided 5,000 scholarships to primary school girls in grades 4, 5, and 6. Scholarships covered school supplies and fees, in addition to financing study groups and remedial courses. Other project-sponsored activities included mentoring activities for the girls with positive female role models from their communities, and gender equity awareness-building activities with School Management Committees, Parents' Associations, and Mothers' Associations.
This one-year project was funded by the US Agency for International Development and ran from September 2004 to September 2005. After that time, the activities were rolled-up into the larger Ambassador Girls' Scholarship Program, a program funded by USAID and managed by World Education in 15 West African countries.
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Strengthening HIV/AIDS Partnerships in Education II (SHAPE II)
(2004 - 2007)
Today, HIV/AIDS threatens to undermine decades of considerable progress in Ghana's education sector as the epidemic ravages the ranks of teachers and students alike. In the face of this challenge, World Education implemented a second three-year phase of the Strengthening HIV/AIDS Partnerships in Education project (SHAPE II), which aimed to prevent the spread and mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on Ghanaian schools and communities. Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, SHAPE II strengthened the capacity of Ghanaian organizations to more effectively plan and implement innovative HIV prevention activities in 240 schools in the Ashanti, Volta, Eastern and Greater Accra Regions of Ghana. With SHAPE II's support, participating Ghanaian organizations improved the effectiveness of their interventions, which ranged from youth drama clubs and puppet shows to teacher support groups and peer education programs. The SHAPE II project also partnered with Ghana's Ministry of Education and Teacher Training Colleges to implement a national HIV/AIDS curriculum (entitled the "Window of Hope"), which provided pre-service teachers with knowledge, skills, and training to address HIV/AIDS issues in the classroom.
World Education successfully implemented SHAPE II from 20045 to 2007. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
Read more in the World Ed Feature Story: Generating Hope through Education: World Education Combats HIV/AIDS in Ghana
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Global Alliance for Illumination in Education in Mali
(2004 - 2007)
Across Mali, adult literacy classes have formed at the request of parents mobilized to advocate schooling for their children. Due to lack of electricity, these adults meet at night in dark classrooms, huddled around a few oil lamps and flashlights. They struggle to see the textbooks and learning materials provided for them. In this exciting initiative, Global Alliance for Illumination for Education, World Education partnered with Design that Matters (DtM) to develop a program focusing on a low-cost, battery-powered projector to be used in dark classrooms. The projector was designed by a team from DtM and named Kinkajou after a nocturnal animal with exceptional nighttime vision. It combines cutting edge light emitting diode (LED) technology with durable microfilm. Literacy lesson material provided by World Education was converted to microfilm stored on reels and inserted in the sturdy projector. The project, funded by USAID, had three main objectives. The first was to increase access to adult literacy by increasing the capacity of educators to teach at night. A secondary objective was to enhance motivation and learning via the use of new educational technology appropriate to developing countries. Thirdly, the project modeled a process that shifts the manufacture of new technologies to local manufacturers.
World Education successfully implemented the Global Alliance for Illumination in Education in Mali project for USAID from 2004 to 2007. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Egypt Education Reform Program (ERP)
(2004 - 2009)
Egypt's education system is highly centralized and gives authority to the Ministries of Local Administration and Finance to make the majority of decisions facing schools in Egypt. As a result, community participation in education is scarce and parents are often reluctant to become more involved in their children's education. Moreover, schools are often faced with overcrowded classrooms, under-qualified teachers and inadequate resources.
The Egypt Education Reform Project, a five-year program funded by USAID, addressed these issues through an integrated approach that combined community mobilization, nonformal education such as life skills and literacy training, school construction, teacher training, and girls' scholarships while ensuring effective leadership and participation on the part of the Egyptian government. In partnership with American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Educational Development Center (EDC), WEI worked through an integrated approach to strengthen community participation, professional development, decentralization, standards, and monitoring and evaluation within the education system. To this end, WEI's interventions through ERP prioritized community mobilization, non-formal education such as life skills and literacy training, and effective, decentralized leadership and participation on the part of the Government of Egypt. Nonformal education interventions included efforts to review progress in the development of decentralized plans for adult literacy in close collaboration with the Adult Education Authority at the national level.
WEI technical support in the area of community participation was tailored specifically to the School-Based Reform (SBR) approach; a process rooted in recognizing the school as the locus of change through which quality education is achieved. WEI has been instrumental in reviving and establishing Boards of Trustees (BOTs) throughout participating schools, which serve to hold schools accountable for the development and management of their school improvement plans. By the fall of 2009, a total of 268 new BOTs had been established and training provided to school-based social workers to activate and mobilize BOTs to practice good governance for educational improvements and refrom. Watch a video of how the project is working with Boards of trustees to improve education.
Additionally, to strengthen management and governance of schools at the national level, WEI trained 1,465 Ministry of Education staff and data collectors to support and carry out data collection, exceeding project targets by over 400 trainees. Complementing these efforts, 433 personnel from the MOE Policy and Strategic Planning Unit and the General Department of Information Statistics and Computing were trained in the Education Management Information System (EMIS) in this WEI-initiated effort.
World Education successfully implemented ERP for USAID from 2004 to 2009. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Innovations in Rural Finance
(2004 - 2005)
In South Africa, lack of access to finance is a major constraint to the growth and development of historically disadvantaged rural enterprises. Resource-poor disadvantaged individuals and small, medium and micro-enterprises require a range of services to support asset building and maximize the impact of micro loans on business growth. Such services includes savings, third-party payments, insurance, and security cover. In response, World Education's Innovations in Rural Finance Program, along with partners Beehive Financial Services, Teba Bank, and various Debit Card Agents, provided and widened cost-effective access to a range of financial services. The project used existing technology and mechanisms to help bridge the gaps between South Africa's advanced financial and market systems and the vast majority of individuals and enterprises who operate on the fringes of this system.
World Education successfully implemented Innovations in Rural Finance for USAID from 2004 to 2005. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Primary School Maintenance and Management in Benin
(2004 - 2005)
Sekkei Keikaku, a Japanese development organization, built dozens of schools in Benin. World Education collaborated with Sekkei Keikaku and local committees to develop strategies to maintain primary schools in Benin. World Education worked with parent associations to ensure maintenance of the new schools. During the life of the project, parents from approximately 35 school parents' associations gained skills to sustain their children's schools.
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Civic Action in the School Environment (CASE) in Benin
(2003 - 2006)
Despite the success of World Education's work in Benin, in particular the PENGOP project, federations of parent associations were still too weak to independently fulfill their purpose. Furthermore Beninese women were not sufficiently participating in parent associations addressing school management issues. The CASE project strengthened the legal environment for civic participation in education and improving gender equity in education. By building the institutional capacity of Parent Association Federations, World Education improved the ability of federations to lobby the government on parents' behalf and to better serve parents and school communities. Through CASE, funded by USAID, World Education also established and built the capacity of mothers' associations to encourage a special focus on girls education and equity.
World Education successfully implemented CASE in Benin for USAID from 2003 to 2006. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Education First: Combating Child Trafficking Through Education
(2003 - 2007)
Benin received significant international press in late 2003 due to the high incidence of Beninese children trafficked to Nigeria to work in mines. World Education and Terre des Hommes, partners in a consortium led by Catholic Relief Services, worked with local organizations in Benin to prevent child trafficking as well as to reintegrate victims of child trafficking in the Education First: Combating Child Trafficking Through Education Project. World Education's role was to build the capacity of local stakeholders, especially parents associations, to develop awareness campaigns and initiatives to reduce child trafficking. Community plans were also developed to guide the successful reintegration of victims into their communities of origin and ensure access for these children and other at-risk youth to formal and non-formal education. Other stakeholders, such as national institutions and government agencies, were involved to promote proactive policies supporting past victims of trafficking and the prevention of future trafficking. This four-year project was funded by the United States Department of Labor.
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Improved Quality of Education in Mali
In 1999, the Malian Ministry of Education began an ambitious endeavor to reform and decentralize the national education system and to improve the quality of basic education for girls and boys in Mali. To support this reform, USAID contracted World Education in 2003 to implement an Improved Quality of Education Activity (IQEA). This project supported the Ministry's ten-year plan for development within the education sector. World Education was the prime contractor for IQEA, in partnership with seven Malian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). During the course of the five-year program, World Education and the Ministry worked with at least 800 schools in 105 communes in the regions of Kidal, Gao, Tomboucotu, Sikasso, Koulikoro, Ségou, and the district of Bamako. IQEA initiatives focused on three major components: improving teacher performance by creating communities of learning; curriculum development and testing for grades 3 - 6; and improving quality and equity in education through increased community participation. The project administered grants and provided technical assistance and capacity building to parents' associations (APE), APE federations, school management committees, mothers' associations, and local NGOs. Important issues such as gender equity and AIDS awareness in education were addressed in each of the three project components.
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Mali Girls' and Women's Literacy Pilot
World Education's past experience demonstrates that female-only literacy classes ensure greater participation of women, especially when taught by women using materials and methods specifically targeted for their use. Women teaching women is a successful strategy: women feel more at ease with teachers of their own gender, especially when discussing sensitive issues like reproductive health, female genital cutting, and domestic violence. Furthermore, husbands and fathers, particularly in conservative Muslim countries, are more likely to permit their wives and daughters to participate in women-only classes. Unfortunately with few literate women in rural communities, and the disinclination of husbands and fathers to allow their wives and daughters to teach, providing classes and recruiting women teachers is difficult.
In Mali, World Education developed mother/daughter classes taught by women. Appropriate measures were taken in the community to address the concerns of husbands and fathers with the hope that this pilot would pave the way for better recruitment and retention of women teachers. The idea of linking girls and their mothers encouraged older women to share local knowledge with young women in their communities. The target result was an integrated literacy program in which women teach other women and adolescent girls to read, write, and do math while learning about good health and nutrition, and promoting an exchange between mothers and girls. Working in partnership with a local NGO, World Education tested the project in 12 classrooms of 30, reaching a total of 360 women/girls. This project was made possible through the generosity of a private donor.
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Uganda Program for Human and Holistic Development (UPHOLD)
This five-year project is helping the public and private sectors in Uganda strengthen their response to social development programs. Working in 20 districts around the country, the project is expanding access to and utilization of quality health and education services. The project identifies strategies for addressing health and education issues locally, with solutions that can be applied nationally. UPHOLD is working through existing groups to help communities mobilize and strengthen their ability to identify and prioritize their own needs. As part of the UPHOLD team, World Education is strengthening community participation in primary education and health. World Education, in partnership with local NGOs, is helping to build the capacity of parent-teacher associations (PTAs) and community health associations through nonformal participatory methods.
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Public Health in Complex Emergencies
(2002 - 2006)
In a refugee crisis or armed conflict, affected communities face daunting health problems, from epidemics to psychological trauma. While many humanitarian agencies respond to such crises, too many health workers arrive in the field without sound technical knowledge and skills. World Education collaborated with the International Rescue Committee, the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, the Institute for Public Health at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center in Bangkok, Thailand to conduct a two-week training course in Public Health in Complex Emergencies.
Intended for the staff of NGOs and local Ministries of Health who work in humanitarian emergencies, the course addressed the planning of public health interventions that impact displaced populations, including epidemiology, nutrition, and reproductive health. Participants returned to their work sites better prepared to answer the question, "If there are thousands of people coming across the border and no facilities in place for them, what do we do first?"
World Education successfully implemented the Public Health in Complex Emergencies for USAID from 2002 to 2006. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Ntinga LINK
(2002 - 2005)
Despite unemployment rates that remain above 30%, South Africa's construction sector is booming. When matched with government empowerment polices designed to reverse the legacy of apartheid, the dynamic growth of construction-related jobs presents a landmark opportunity for poor South Africans to enter the mainstream economy. The Ntinga LINK program assisted more than a dozen South African business service providers to provide small contractors with the information and skills they needed to participate in the lucrative construction projects carried out by largescale firms. These LINK-supported service providers, organized loosely into provincial forums, provided a wide range of services that included construction bid preparation, finance and materials brokering, and on-site contractor mentoring. In the end, all LINK activities linked small contractors with opportunities that created new jobs by growing their business - and promoted a sustainable market for demand-driven business support services.
World Education successfully implemented Ntinga LINK for USAID from 2002 to 2005. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Community Involvement in Primary Education (CIPE)
(2001 - 2005)
In southern Africa, where national governments have successfully expanded primary school enrollment, the education sector faces the challenge of providing quality education to a vast population of new students. World Education's Civic Involvement in Primary Education (CIPE) project addressed this critical issue by mobilizing communities in Malawi, Mozambique, Angola, and Zambia to become actively involved in the education of their children. Working with a key local NGO partner in each country, CIPE provided training and small grant assistance to parent associations (e.g., PTAs and school committees) at the community level, thus building their capacity to improve the quality of education in their schools.
World Education successfully implemented CIPE from 2001 to 2005. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
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Community Participation in Education for Equity and Quality (PACEEQ)
There is a large disparity in Guinea between urban and rural area school enrollment and quality of education due to complex historical and socio-economic factors. Retention rates for girls and rural children are low throughout the country, but increased parental involvement in education has offered opportunities for improvement. Decentralization has also played a pivotal role with regard to basic education policy and parents have become the primary advocates for educational resources for their children.
In collaboration with Save the Children, Educational Development Center (EDC), Research Triangle Institute (RTI), and Academy for Educational Development (AED), World Education has increased community participation in basic education in order to improve quality and gender equity. PACEEQ developed the skills and institutional capacity of Guinean nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to implement effective community development activities through training and support services. In addition, the program worked closely with NGOs to strengthen parents' associations to enhance their role in improving quality of and access to education for their children. Also integrated into PACEEQ were rural radio activities, adult literacy training, and strategies to prevent and mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS.
In August of 2005, PACEEQ was extended for a supplemental year to ensure that parents associations and local government institutions sustain project activities for years to come. The focus for the 2005-2006 year also included substantial training and capacity building support to national level institutions.
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Uganda HIV/AIDS Integrated Model District Program (AIM)
(2001 - 2006)
As one of the first African countries to respond proactively to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Uganda became a model for other nations around the world in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Over the last decade, Uganda has successfully reduced rates of HIV infection by mobilizing actors in both the public and private sectors to develop sustained education, prevention, and care programs. Despite this significant progress, successful services are not uniformly available throughout the country and many areas remain critically underserved. In the AIDS/HIV Integrated Model District Program (AIM), implemented in partnership with John Snow, Inc., World Education worked to scale up and replicate successful HIV/AIDS interventions by strengthening selected districts to plan, implement and monitoring a range of essential HIV/AIDS services. While these services span the entire spectrum of HIV/AIDS support, ranging from education campaigns, clinical treatment, and home-based care to voluntary counseling and testing, the goal remained consistent: to strengthen Uganda's capacity to effectively respond to the next generation of HIV/AIDS needs.
World Education and JSI successfully implemented AIM for USAID from 2001 to 2006. For further information about this project's activities, please contact wei@worlded.org
Read the following success story about the project: Opening Homes and Hearts
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