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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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Brighter Futures Program (2005 - 2009)
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 implemented a four-year project to combat child labor through education. World Education's Brighter Futures Program worked closely with the International Labor Organization's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor in Nepal. Brighter Futures activities were 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 used what they learned from project implementation at the community level to help inform existing and new government policies related to child labor. World Education and its partners worked 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 included 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 engaged 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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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 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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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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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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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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HIV/AIDS Education: Promoting Healthy Youth and HIV and AIDS Prevention for In-School and Out-of-School Youth
(2005 - 2007)
To help change behaviors and attitudes of youth (ages 15-24), World Education built on its broad base of expertise in youth-targeted HIV prevention to design new interventions that targeted in-school and out-of-school youth in Takeo and Pursat provinces. Funded by HealthNet International from 2005 to 2007, the project combined an emphasis on life skills, non-formal education, curriculum development, and training into World Education's strategy that included three components: IEC (Information, Education, and Communication) and Life Skills for Out-of-School Youth, In-School IEC and Life Skills Training for HIV/AIDS, and Promoting Healthy Youth.
Promoting Healthy Youth entailed creating health clubs for in-school youth as a means of getting students interested in the topics of HIV and AIDS through membership and participation in the clubs. Club members engaged in HIV education and outreach activities, community mobilization, and IEC development and dissemination.
The goal of HIV/AIDS Prevention for In-School and Out-of-School Youth was to change behaviors and attitudes of youth related to HIV/AIDS, thereby making them less vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. IEC and Life Skills for Out-of-School Youth worked with adolescent boys and young men, adolescent girls and young women, and married couples. Individualized life skills classes for each of the three groups combined issues of HIV awareness and human sexuality with a range of additional topics highly relevant to the individual sub-populations.
In-School IEC and Life Skills Training for HIV/AIDS combined a life skills approach with peer education for in-school youth. In addition, targeted youth were involved in setting behavior change goals and in developing specific information, education, and communication materials to facilitate behavior change among their peers. Teachers and community members were involved in life skills training, mentoring peer educators, and IEC development and dissemination.
Where possible, the three components were integrated with one another, particularly with out-of-school youth and in-school youth, so that the two groups could work together to prevent HIV among youth more broadly in the hope that a critical mass of involvement among youth from all backgrounds would encourage greater community receptivity to the issue of HIV prevention. The project also facilitated peer education activities among all three youth sub-populations to provide opportunities for counseling and information dissemination in informal settings. Local communities were heavily involved in the project implementation.
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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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Life Skills for HIV and AIDS Education
( - 2007)
Though Cambodia has achieved recent success in its fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS, the disease continues to pose a very real threat, and the youth of Cambodia may be among the country's most vulnerable. Building on past collaborative efforts, World Education and Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) partnered together in the Life Skills for HIV and AIDS Education Program (LSHE) from 2005-2007. The initiative reached youth in and out-of-school in eight provinces across the country with a life-skills approach to HIV prevention that also included peer education initiatives for secondary students and out-of-school youth and, on a limited basis, primary students.
The goal of LSHE was to reduce HIV infections among youth in Cambodia, and the primary objectives were (1) to improve awareness, attitudes, and behaviors on the part of youth in regards to HIV and AIDS; and (2) to improve the capacity of MoEYS to design and carry out future interventions related to HIV. World Education's role was to lead the design of the HIV prevention education strategy and work alongside MoEYS local and provincial level staff who were primarily responsible for carrying it out.
LSHE, which was funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, implemented its pilot phase in one district (Kong Pisey) of Kampong Speu Province. In January 2006, the program scaled up in that province and into seven additional provinces, expanding to 50% of the targeted districts and 100% of the targeted schools, in each of these areas. The LSHE project was able to improve the awareness, attitudes, and behaviors of youth in its target regions in regards to HIV and AIDS and also improved the capacity of MoEYS to design and carry out future interventions related to HIV.
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Saving Women's Lives
(2005 - 2009)
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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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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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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Swasthya Chautari (2004 - 2007)
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 worked in collaboration with JSI Research & Training Institute's 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 was 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 aimed to build the capacity of FCHVs so that they can be more effective health educators of young women. This was done through the use of World Education's GATE and HEAL curricula. The women and girls also participated in monthly learning circles and listening circles around various health topics in order to reinforce and enhance their health knowledge, and in community awareness activities in order to share that knowledge.
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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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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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Vulnerable Street Children Program
( - 2007)
A significant number of Cambodia's youth face difficulties with poverty, unstable home lives, substance abuse problems, and other factors that lead too many of them to a life on the streets. These children, without the safety net of a stable home and a place in the mainstream of Cambodian society and culture, often do not attend school and are forced to eke out a living through any means at their disposal, including selling newspapers, shining shoes and working in private businesses such as restaurants and shops, to the more unfortunate who turn to commercial sex work or crime to survive. For many of these children, the lack of stability in their lives means they lack access to basic information to keep them healthy and protect themselves from diseases such as HIV and AIDS.
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), in recognition of the importance of reaching this population with HIV prevention education, entered into a partnership with World Education and Mith Samlanh to deliver the Vulnerable Street Children Program (VSCP). The goal of VSCP was to reduce HIV infections among street children in Phnom Penh through the dissemination of education and information to help them avoid risky behaviors related to HIV infection. In addition, the MoEYS gained substantial in-house experience and knowledge about working with this population, culminating in their development of a strategy to work with these vulnerable youth directly in the future.
VSCP was implemented from July 2005 through October 2007 by World Education, in partnership with Mith Samlanh, the recognized leader in outreach and rehabilitation programs for street children in Cambodia. It was funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development.
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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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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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