Better Schools for Girls in Benin

Teachers face a daily challenge: to guarantee good learning conditions in a class group, often large, with students in the midst of learning their rights and abilities. Through our program, the students establish norms of coexistence based on the expectations and needs of all.

The students are then co-protagonists of the established rules, are informed and understand their usefulness, and feel accountable for ensuring they are respected.

Education for a culture of peace is at the heart of this program. It progressively imposes itself as essential to develop and strengthen the quality of education for all with zero discrimination. 

 The Foundation Vie Pour Tous, based in Parakou, Benin, evaluated the effects of the Better Schools for Girls project. It shows that the project has measurable outcomes, in particular:

• Stakeholders are more involved after the training to consider girls' needs in education better.
• Boys are more inclined to participate in household chores than girls.
• There is more co-education, both in the placement of students in the classroom and in the distribution of tasks.
• Teachers have more pleasure in teaching.
• Encouragement takes more importance.

We remain more than ever mobilized so that girls can have equal access to full-quality education. To this end, we would be most fortunate to count you as one of our loyal donors again this year.

«The Better School for Girls » program continues to improve access to education for girls as gender inequalities may grow more acute within families in Sub-Saharan African countries. Girls are expected to perform household chores, agricultural work, or worse being victims of sexual harassment and assault and forced into early marriage, obstructing their right to education and a dignified life.

The challenges young girls face daily have set a low enrolment record and high dropout rates in Côte d'Ivoire and Benin schools. Immediate action is needed to deconstruct gender stereotypes in schools and communities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for education (SDG 4) and gender equality (SDG 5).

« We need to show parents that by building up their girls and their boys, they can move out of poverty. Once you empower the girls, you're helping the economy. And peace. Because who are the key actors of peace in any society? Everywhere you go, it's women and girls.»                                          -Delia Mamon, President of Graines de Paix-

In September 2021, our foundation developed resources for teacher training and parent sensitization to improve girls' opportunities for quality education based on a theory of change workshop conducted with various project stakeholders.

The resources developed served as a basis for Alibori, Benin in 2022:

• 400 teachers trained
• 800 parents sensitized on gender issues in education

Positive testimonies of participants and training evaluations lead us to respond to growing demand. Our foundation wishes to extend the "Better School for Girls" program in Benin and take action for more beneficiaries in Alibori. The approach can then be adapted and replicated at the secondary level and in other departments of Benin.

Testimony of AÏDODE Innocent, Pedagogical Advisor in Kandi and new trainer for the Better Schools for Girls project.

« This is my first time participating in Graines de Paix's training. My impressions of this workshop are excellent. For my peers, it was a reinforcement, but as a first-time participant, It was an opportunity more than ever to learn things I didn't know and to enrich and confirm others that I knew partially. This will significantly impact my life with my family, at work, and in my environment in general.

What I liked the most was the content of the training, the themes developed and the quality of the animation. It is also the development made on the various emotions and especially how to regulate them. From now on, we will be able to deconstruct stereotypes, prejudices and gender discrimination. »

Alibori to influence other regions

Our goal is to improve opportunities for girls, to access a rewarding, quality education at the primary level in Alibori. By integrating with the country's educational and social system, the project ensures that the trained agents can propagate the supported methods themselves beyond the project's intervention framework. The project is part of a more extensive intervention program that will strengthen sustainability by expanding to other regions and other levels of education.

We aim to reach:

• 800 primary school teachers
• About 40,000 primary school girls and boys
• 1,600 parents

This project was developed in a participatory manner and responds to a need expressed by the ministries on behalf of the beneficiaries. The changes targeted by the project were defined in collaboration with local authorities, teachers, social workers, parents, religious leaders and civil society representatives. 

We thank you for your interest and your support! We hope you will share this program with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to support the evolution of education for girls in Benin.