World Education, Inc.

A Quality Approach to Mainstreaming Best Practicies
Since 2002, World Education has worked in Prey Veng Province to develop and implement interventions that aim to increase educational access and retention of vulnerable girls, children and youth aged six to 17 in quality education programs through the EPSSEG and OPTIONS Programs. After five years, evaluations of these programs have concluded that OPTIONS has developed effective models that have the potential for replication on a larger scale and can be sustained through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) funds. Through the support of UNICEF, World Education is currently focusing on larger scale replication with the aim to mainstream its more effective education interventions under the national Child Friendly School framework and the national Education for All strategy.

The program's four main objectives are to: mainstream a gender-sensitive response; mainstream a holistic approach to developing and implementing local life skills programs; establish a MoEYS coordinated and managed community-based livelihood development model for out-of-school youth; and lastly, to retain at-risk girls and children in need of special protection in upper primary and lower secondary school through scholarship support.
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Ambassadors Girls Scholarship Program (AGSP)
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) is being implemented throughout Sub-Saharan Africa from 2004 - 2011. World Education manages the program in 13 West African countries in collaboration with local NGOs. The AEI/AGSP provides scholarships to cover educational costs to 180,000 girls and boys across the continent each year (30,000 in West Africa alone) 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. The girls are sponsored over a period of 4-5 years, through mostly primary and some junior secondary schooling. In addition, each girl enrolled in the scholarship program is mentored and encouraged in her educational pursuits, while participating in activities that focus on HIV mitigation and prevention, and community participation and democracy.

WEI's AGSP programming represents a notable example of WEIs well-known and recognized expertise in building the capacity of its local community counterparts. Because grants to community organizations and NGOs play a significant role in WEI programs, in addition to our own strong internal systems for providing and monitoring sub-grants, WEI trains local organizations in how to meet reporting requirements, draft and manage agreements, and monitor sub-grants. Via our NGO partners, WEI trains sub-grant recipients in how to account for funds, ensuring transparency and accuracy in accounting. AGSP is an excellent example of this since it is implemented through sub-grants to over 41 local NGO partners in 13 countries in West Africa. WEI works with these 41 NGOs partners to provide scholarship and mentorship support, such that the NGOs not only deliver their technical services, but also maintain records and reports that meet USAID standards. Through AGSP, WEI currently manages more than $18 million dollars in sub-grants to local institutions (NGOs, APEs, CSOs, etc.). Sagefox Consulting Group, LLC, the M&E subcontractor on AGSP, maintains 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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Batonga Girls' Education Program
World Education is partnering with Batonga Foundation, founded by Angelique Kidjo, the West African singer, songwriter, and UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassador. The program supports girls in Mali and Benin to continue their education through middle school and beyond. Batonga education packages cover school fees, uniforms, and school supplies; after-school tutorials that help girls improve their academic skills; and mentor programs that connect girls to volunteers in their communities who encourage their successes and teach them about important personal health topics, including how to prevent HIV. Batonga girls are graduates of the Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program in Benin and Mali. The program is implemented locally in partnership with nongovernmental organizations, parent groups and mothers in particular, as well as school administrators.
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Brighter Futures Program
In Nepal, one of every three children is a child laborer, with an estimated 2.6 million children between the ages of five and fourteen working on farms, in factories, in businesses, or in other people's homes. World Education is implementing a four-year project to combat child labor through education. World Education's Brighter Futures Program works closely with the International Labor Organization's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor in Nepal. Brighter Futures activities are carried out at two levels: in communities where children come from or where they currently live and work; and at the policy level with government and international agencies.

World Education and its government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners use what they learn from project implementation at the community level to help inform existing and new government policies related to child labor. World Education and its partners work to increase children's access to education, and to improve the relevance and quality of education and training for children rescued from abusive forms of child labor. This includes provision of nonformal and vocational education opportunities, the strengthening of community based education, and the strengthening of monitoring and supervision systems used in primary education and nonformal education programs. Brighter Futures engages policymakers in the continuous review of lessons learned from program implementation and the study of specific barriers to children's participation in order to formulate and improve educational policy on child labor.
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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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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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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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Educational Support for Children of Underserved Populations (ESCUP) ( - )
Although the right to a basic education is guaranteed to every Cambodian child in the country's constitution, there continues to be a considerable gap between official policy and reality. Impediments to a quality basic education continue to exist throughout the country, especially in remote areas. The causes underlying this situation can best be understood as a complex interaction between supply and demand-side factors that include teacher shortages, low educational relevance, restrictive access due to direct and indirect costs, and the perceived low value of education by community members, among other factors. The Educational Support for Children of Underserved Populations (ESCUP) program is designed to increase access to and quality of basic education to underserved groups, including the poorest of the poor, disabled children, girls, and minority groups. ESCUP interventions that promote access and quality fall under the three sub-components of teacher education, educational access and quality, and school-community partnerships. ESCUP is being implemented in the provinces of Kampong Cham, Kratie, and Mondulkiri. Funding for the program is provided by the American Institutes for Research and EQUIP 1 under a cooperative agreement with USAID. The program began in April 2005 and was implemented through September 2008.

Read a Feature Story about our work with children in rural areas under the ESCUP project, Rural Communities Take Charge of Children's Education
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Egypt Education Reform Program (ERP) (2004 - 2010)
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, addresses these issues through an integrated approach that combines 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 works 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 prioritize 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 include 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 is 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.

Additionallly, 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.
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Faisons Ensemble
Faisons Ensemble, a 31-month project funded by USAID/Guinea, focuses on improving basic services in health, education, agriculture, and natural resource management through better governance practices. The project targets communities in Upper Guinea, Forest Guinea, and the five communes of Conakry.

The goal of Faisons Ensemble is to increase citizen access to better services in the health, education, agriculture, and natural resources sectors, with the aim of improving living conditions for Guineans. Faisons Ensemble will recruit and work with "champions" within local government, civil society, and the media, to provide capacity building, technical, and financial support for groups that promote good governance practices.

The project has four main objectives:
1. Improved effectiveness of government institutions and decentralization and local service delivery
2. Greater visibility and effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts
3. Increased capacity and effectiveness of civil society, working through strong CSOs and CBOs that are well managed and participate, demand accountability and transparency in service delivery, and advocate for good governance.
4. Increased citizen access to more diverse sources and types of information.

World Education is responsible for managing the third and fourth components of Faisons Ensemble, which focus on the capacity and effectiveness of civil society for improved civic participation and advocacy, and citizen access to information - as well as cross-cutting adult literacy, youth engagement, and gender. World Education also oversees overall grants management of the project, ensuring that targeted champions at community, regional, and national level receive the full financial support required to advance innovations in good governance.

World Education collaborates with five other U.S. non-governmental organizations (NGO) and two Guinean NGOs in the Faisons Ensemble consortium led by the Research Triangle Institute.
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Farmer Field Schools in Nepal - The Next Generation (2002 - 2005)
The reality for young women and out-of-school youth in rural Nepal is that agriculture is a major focus of their lives. Over 82% of Nepal's population is supported by agriculture. Rapid population growth has meant that although agricultural production is increasing, levels of malnutrition are still rising. World Education is working with older girls graduating from its Girls Access to Education (GATE) Program and out-of-school youth in its Brighter Futures Program by linking them to farmer field schools (FFS).

World Education works with its nine NGO partners to identify girls and out-of-school youth who have not entered school or who have dropped out. If a community is interested, they form groups of parents and daughters or youth interested in attending a FFS. Once groups are formed, the NGO FFS trainer conducts a Farmer Field School that lasts for approximately 18 weeks, or a full cropping season. During FFS, participating farmers gather in a village field each week to compare their own standard farming practices to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices. The primary learning curriculum is the paddy field itself, where most learning activities take place. At the end of the season, girls, out-of-school youth, and their parents share what they have learned with the community through a Farmer Field Day. This is their opportunity to show (and show off to) the rest of the community. Farmers can proudly share what they have learned with their families, neighbors, friends and peers. Through sharing, they also recall the whole Farmer Field School experience and reinforce their own learning.
Read the following success story about the program: Taking on the Future: Building a Better Life through Education and Agriculture
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Girls Access to Education in Bihar (GATE-Bihar), India ( - )
The GATE-Bihar program works with three local NGOs in Bihar to improve life options for adolescent girls from tribal groups, other scheduled castes, and more conservative communities in Bihar through educational, health, livelihood and policy interventions. Each aspect of the GATE-Bihar intervention includes girls, their families and their communities as central players in the design and implementation of the program. The three partner NGOs are members of the Bihar Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC) Network.

The GATE-Bihar curriculum includes basic literacy and numeracy, extensive information on health and sanitation, as well as information on child rights, trafficking and, safe migration. The GATE-Bihar Program model is implemented at the grassroots level by local NGOs working closely with communities to carry out a village orientation programs that build awareness of girls' education and trafficking issues across the community. NGOs work with each community to establish class management committees that recruit girls to participate in the meeting and then assist with the on-going management of the classes. Each GATE class is taught by a local facilitator who is trained and supervised by the local NGO partners. The class management committee works with local education officials to help girls who graduate from the GATE Program transition into primary school. If girls do not go to primary school, the GATE Program provides them with training in appropriate and viable livelihoods.

World Education's GATE-Bihar Program builds on program efforts started in 1998 in districts on the Nepal side of the border where World Education Nepal and its local partners developed the highly successful Girls Access to Education (GATE) Program for out-of-school girls. In Nepal, the GATE Program reaches over 6,000 girls per year. The GATE-Bihar project is currently in the first year of the five-year implementation plan, where our three partner NGOs will be adapting the GATE materials in classes for adolescent girls from border districts of Bihar with Nepal, and review and revise the materials for wider use by other NGOs in the region, over time.

The three-year GATE-Bihar program is part of a larger World Education initiative in Bihar that includes working with NGOs involved in the DFID-funded PACS program that focuses on poverty alleviation strategies in the state. GATE-Bihar is also linked to a similar initiative taking place between World Education India and four NGOs in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh which began in February 2006 and builds on four years of preparatory project work in the region.

Read the following success story about the project: Using Knowledge Learned to Save Others
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Girls' Access to Education (GATE) Program
In rural Nepal, two-thirds of adolescent girls are not enrolled in formal schools. These illiterate, out-of-school girls are destined for lives of low status and limited opportunities. In 1998, World Education began the Girls' Access to Education (GATE) Program by developing a nine-month literacy curriculum that integrates adolescent health and girls' empowerment information with literacy training. As girls learn how to read, write and do basic mathematics, they learn about basic nutrition, reproductive health, the consequences of early marriage, early pregnancy, unsafe sex, STIs, and HIV/AIDS. World Education developed a series of booklets for the program that focus on the dangers of trafficking, child rights, and safe migration.
Out-of-school girls who participate in nonformal education programs like GATE achieve a basic primary education. This is an extraordinary and life-changing accomplishment for a low-status, illiterate girl, but it is only half the story. Many GATE graduates re-enroll into the formal school system or participate in vocational or practical skills training to continue their education.

In some of the districts where GATE classes are being given, parents have the opportunity to participate in local Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs). As these PTA members gain management skills and learn how to help students maximize their learning, they are in a position to assist the GATE graduates who transition to the formal school system. Recently, the GATE Program has also developed practical vocational training alternatives for girls who graduate from GATE, but who choose not to enroll in school. Included among these alternatives is the Self-Employment Education Program (SEEP), which teaches girls basic savings and credit principles, and gives them capacity to start their own small businesses.

Read the following success stories about the program: Preventing Trafficking and Violence through Education, A Dream Fulfilled, and How Mina Escaped from Being Sold
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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 400 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 about 500 school Mothers' Associations (AME in French). WEI has achieved notable success in Benin by enabling and working with AMEs. AMEs are made up of school mothers and other women of the community, and are a sub-group of the typically male dominated 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 the support of the male-dominated APEs in improving the learning environment, monitoring student progress, and establishing positive collaborative relationships with the local teachers. CAEF is building on WEI's AME work by targeting capacity building of AMEs to lobby APEs to prioritize addressing 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 drawn out of school to become vidomégan (usually domestic servants or market sellers for wealthy and middle-class families), and to enable these children to return to school; and fighting against forced marriage, child rape and other abuses. CAEF is also promoting AME federations to undertake a revision of outdated statutes, and to lobby government authorities on issues relating to girls' education, 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 synergize and complement programs and establish strong stakeholder 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 for the promotion of girls' access to education. CAEF is also working in collaboration with ministry officials and its partner NGO, OSV-Jordan, to organize a march and public discussion of HIV-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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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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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 is designed to support the Ministry's ten-year plan for development within the education sector (called PRODEC). World Education is the prime contractor for IQEA, in partnership seven Malian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The project and all activities are planned and implemented in close coordination with the Ministry, with input from USAID. 105 communes in the regions of Kidal, Gao, Tomboucotu, Sikasso, Koulikoro, Ségou, and the district of Bamako have been reached. During the course of the five-year program, World Education and the Ministry will work with at least 800 schools within these communes. IQEA initiatives focus particularly 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. This project administers grants and provides technical assistance and capacity building to parents associations (APE), APE federations, school management committees, mothers' associations, and to local NGOs. Important issues such as gender equity and HIV/AIDS awareness in education are addressed throughout 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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OPTIONS: Combating Child Trafficking and Exploitation through Education (2003 - 2007)
Cambodia serves as a country of origin, transit, and destination for both domestic and international trafficking networks. A recent report estimates that 30% of commercial sex workers in Cambodia are under 18 years of age. These girls and women are easy targets for traffickers, unaware of the dangers that lurk behind promises of good employment. They are a living testimony to the link between lack of education and vulnerability. The OPTIONS program was implemented from 2004-2007 with the goal of reducing the number of children, especially girls, who fall victim to trafficking and exploitation. The immediate objective was to ensure that children, especially girls, removed from or at risk of trafficking and exploitation were educated in programs relevant to their needs. OPTIONS worked closely with community networks to identify children who are at risk and provided them with support in formal and nonformal interventions appropriate to their individual needs. Building on the skills of four major partners - World Education, CARE International, The Asia Foundation, and Kampuchean Action for Primary Education - OPTIONS worked in three provinces: Prey Veng, Kompong Cham, Banteay Meanchey, and certain areas of Phnom Penh. The OPTIONS program was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor with additional support from the McKnight Foundation and UNICEF.

Read the following success story about the program: Using Education to Combat Child Trafficking in Cambodia
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Quality Education Resource Package (Phase III)
As part of an ongoing effort to increase decentralized decision-making and responsibility for schools in Nepal, World Education has developed the Quality Education Resource Package (QERP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, UNICEF, and local partners. The Quality Education Resource Package is a "toolkit" of materials and activities designed to empower parents, teachers and students to address various issues in their schools related to improving the quality of education. Some of the key quality issues addressed by QERP are improved school management, greater participation of parents and communities through PTAs, improvement of school facilities to meet minimum standards, the use of child-centered teaching, improved achievement in Grade One, and inclusion regardless of caste, ethnicity, socio-economic status, disability and working status.

Each school that receives the Quality Education Resource Package is provided with games, posters, art materials, brochures and modules on priority topics, a lithograph machine and radio, and a Resource Manual. They are also given a basic library with reference books and maps for the children. World Education and its partner organizations work with parents, teachers and students to make use of these materials by visiting the schools regularly to help them identify the priority issues they want to address. Initially piloted in 2000 schools, there are plans to expand the use of the QERP to all 26,000 primary schools across the country with support from UNICEF and Danida.
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Resunga Mahila Project
In rural Nepal, women do not have access to credit from banks. If they borrow money from village moneylenders, they are forced to pay back the loan at unreasonably high interest rates. It is rare to hear of female community members saving money and investing those savings into livelihoods improvement because there is no mechanism for them to do so at the local level, especially in remote areas where there is little access to local markets and services.

In Nepal, "green roads" use environmentally friendly, labor-intensive construction techniques to build roads that link isolated, rural village development committees (VDCs) with district centers. In hill districts, green roads have been promoted for the development of secondary road systems to improve access to markets and services for remote VDCs. Green roads bring immediate economic benefits to communities along the road corridor. A skeletal network of "green roads" is being developed in Gulmi and Arghakhanchi Districts that will link the district centers to more remote VDCs. As part of this initiative, expansion of microfinance and economic education will be implemented to ensure that these new routes bring economic benefit to the families that surround them.

To take advantage of those benefits, World Education is working with its NGO partners in Gulmi and Arghakhanchi to reach older women with little or no literacy skills, while at the same time providing opportunities for women with limited formal education to receive relevant nonformal education. By using the Women's Economic Empowerment and Literacy (WEEL) package along the "green roads" corridors, women will increase their literacy skills, and especially their math skills, so that they are better prepared to participate in savings and credit groups and gain knowledge and skills for improving their livelihoods.
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Scholarships for Girls in Northern Mali (2005 - 2008)
The Northern Mali Secondary Scholarship Program supports girls who have successfully completed primary school to continue their education. The program provides scholarship support, links girls with mentors, and works 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 play an important role in fostering a supportive environment for girls and encouraging their attendance. The World Ed Mali team aims to root local support and ownership through strong networks of parents, local NGOs, and local businesses who are helping to support girls' education in the community. World Education scholarships currently support 620 secondary school girls in Northern Mali and hopes to expand the program in the future.
Read the following success story about the program: Girls' Secondary Scholarship Program
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SELECT Stop Exploitive Labor and Education Children for Tomorrow
Child trafficking and child labor are prevalent practices in some parts of Guinea. This is due to a range of factors including Guinea's geographic location and the large demand for improved education services. Until the government of Guinea can provide quality education to children, working for wages will be a viable option for many families.

Funded by the US Department of Labor, the SELECT Project will address the issues of child labor from the prevention and mitigation perspectives in the regions of Faranah, Kindia and N'Zerekore. Program objectives include:

• Withdrawing children and preventing children from participating in exploitive child labor.
  
• Strengthening Guinea's capacity to combat child trafficking and exploitive child labor.
  
• Promoting the long-term practical value of education.
  
• Raising awareness of child trafficking and exploitive child labor.
  
• Increasing national capacity to address the issues of child labor and trafficking in Guinea.

Working with local partners, as well as international NGOs such as ChildFund International, Plan International and SageFox, World Education will use a community-driven approach to promote action and change from within and create sustainable environments that keep children in school.
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South India Girl Child Initiative
The South India Girl Child Initiative seeks to expand existing efforts of four local NGOs that ameliorate the social, environmental, and economic conditions that impede girls' education and decrease girls' vulnerability to sexual exploitation and abusive forms of child labor in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu States. The end goals of the Initiative are to improve the educational and health status of adolescent girls from poor and more conservative communities, and to help adolescent girls transition into primary school or training to increase their life options and decrease their risk of being trafficked or entering into other forms of child labor.

Through the Initiative, the four partner NGOs, who interact with at least 16 other small local NGOs, community-based groups, and family foundations and trusts in the region, will work individually and collectively on:

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• Improving the quality and effectiveness of their educational and social development programs for girls;
  
• Developing and testing strategies to engage parents, community leaders, schools, and government officials to support, promote and advocate for girls' education; and,
  
• Contributing to the development of relevant educational and social policy that is informed and shaped by the needs and realities of girls themselves.

The three-year South Indian Girl Child Initiative aims to increase life options for 1,000 vulnerable girls each year through direct interventions and upwards of 6,000 through secondary services over the course of the project. Secondary beneficiaries will include about 100 Indian NGO staff, field workers and teachers. The project will strengthen community participation and support for girls' education in general, and address the social, educational, economic, and cultural beliefs and practices that diminish the value of girls' education and promote abusive child labor practices, including sexual exploitation of children. It will also develop a model for collaboration and network-building by grassroots organizations that will drive systemic change and can be replicated in other parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
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Starting New Lives (2006 - 2008)
Nepal has a long history as a source country for young girls and women being trafficked for sexual exploitation in India. In fact, in recent years there has been a growing awareness that there is also internal trafficking for sexual exploitation in the entertainment industry and for child labor. Many Nepali adult prostitutes in India enter the profession at the average age of 14-16 years as a result of trafficking and are kept enslaved and in debt bondage for approximately three to five years. Children are trafficked from Makwanpur and other Tarai districts to work as circus performers in India. Domestically, girls and young women are trafficked for work in massage parlors and cabin and dance restaurants in Kathmandu; while these girls are neither bonded or enslaved most have been the victims of deception as to the nature of the job. The conflict in Nepal also had a major role in increasing the numbers of girls migrating from the villages in search of employment who end up in these working places. In most cases, very few of these young women return to their villages due to the stigma and discrimination associated with their work and the lack of alternative income generating activities.

The Starting New Lives Project has been funded by USAID to complement work being carried out by World Education for child victims of trafficking.

Education is the main strategy being used both to support trafficking survivors and to prevent girls at risk from being trafficked. Other interventions include safe shelter and outreach into entertainment establishments where trafficking victims work.

There is a special focus on the Dalit and Tamang communities that have been more susceptible to trafficking.
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Swasthya Chautari
In Nepal, most young mothers live with their extended families and bear a disproportionately large share of the household chores, agricultural tasks, and other livelihood duties. In order to address health education needs among young mothers, the Ministry of Health (MOH) relies on the use of mass media (radio and television) and interactions by Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) with the mothers. The FCHVs are the first contact that families have with the health service delivery system, and they play an integral role in the health education process, especially by referring the mothers to health facilities. However, these young mothers have little access to the mass media, and there is a significant disconnect between the knowledge of the FCHVs and that of surveyed mothers.

Through the Swasthya Chuatari program, World Education is working in collaboration with the Nepal Family Health Program (NFHP), the MOH, and its nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners to provide better health education to the women from the most disadvantaged communities. In Nepali, the Chautari is the village meeting place under a tree where members of the community come to discuss issues, rest, and socialize, while Swasthya means health. Thus, the translated meaning of Swasthya Chautari is "health forum." The goal of World Education's Swasthya Chuatari program is to provide young women with the opportunity to develop their knowledge of essential health issues and practical life skills by creating a safe, open environment for such learning to occur. The program also aims to build the capacity of FCHVs so that they can be more effective health educators of young women. This is being done through the use of World Education's GATE and HEAL curricula. The women and girls also participate in monthly learning circles and listening circles around various health topics in order to reinforce and enhance their health knowledge, as and in community awareness activities in order to share that knowledge.
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Train and Educate Adolescents with Community Help (TEACH-Plus) Project
World Education's TEACH-Plus (Train and Educate Adolescents with Community Help) Project worked with ABHAS, an Indian NGO in Delhi, to increase access and retention of 250 marginalized and disadvantaged adolescent girls from the urban slum community of Tughlakabad, into the formal school systems. The TEACH Project worked closely with adolescent girls, parents, education committees, educators and field level functionaries, members of the self-help groups and local government and municipal school teachers to improve education opportunities for girl children. Remedial education classes, regular counseling to the girls and mothers, interaction with the school teachers, and regular tracking of academic progress were some of the interventions that the Project used to promote girl's education.
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Using Education to Combat Abusive Forms of Child Labor in India
Child labor, particularly those forms that endanger children's health and general well being, is common in rural India. In rural Andhra Pradesh (AP), where families are highly dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, children, especially young girls (ages 8-15), are employed in the cotton seed industry. The girls -- many of whom work as bonded laborers returning loans given to their families by cotton farmers -- are often exposed to hazardous chemicals used on cotton, work long hours, and receive meager pay for their work. Many of the estimated 248,000 children employed in the cotton seed industry in AP are not attending school -- many have dropped out and almost a third have never attended.

World Education worked with a local NGO partner, Center for Applied Research and Extension (Care), that ran a school for girls rescued from the cotton seed industry. Project work focused on activities that included a basic health and nutrition plan; developing a locally relevant, life skills-centered curriculum; training of teachers and Care staff to implement the curriculum, developing follow-up programs for school graduates; designing a community outreach program to raise awareness about the hazards of child labor; and advocacy with local leaders and policymakers about education and child labor issues.
Read the following success story about the program: Helping Girls Protect Themselves in India
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Women's Empowerment through Literacy and Livelihood Development (WELLD) (2003 - 2007)
Over the last several years in India, the popularity of women's savings and credit groups (commonly referred to as self-help groups) has been on the rise. However, the ability of members to achieve their full potential in the areas of livelihoods and assets enhancement, and in overall social development and political participation, is limited by their lack of literacy skills.

From 1999 - 2002, World Education worked on a pilot project in collaboration with the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) funded by the Ford Foundation and implemented in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. This project, known as the Women's Empowerment through Literacy and Livelihood Development (WELLD) Project, led to the development of a literacy curriculum that integrates literacy with concepts of savings and credit group formation and management, and livelihood improvement. World Education provided technical assistance to organizations in India that wanted to use or adapt the WELLD package to meet the needs of the women who participated in their microfinance programs. Through the use of these materials, women became active members of independent, self-sustainable savings and credit groups, and moved towards making more informed choices about their livelihood activities.
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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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