This project energizes girls from some of the poorest families in Guinea to get an education by paying their schools fees, as well as uniforms and supplies. In addition, an education monitor is assigned to each girl to keep the support of the family, especially the father. At times we must provide food for the family, so the girl is not forced to work. By providing the education monitor, the girl can give 100% to her class work.
Girls in Guinea are discriminated against because they are born female and poor. In West Africa, with a population estimated at about 13.9 million inhabitants including 52% women, women and girls are still at risk. There are many obstacles to girls' education, these include family poverty, high cost of education, early marriages, unwanted pregnancies, sexual harassment and rape, which goes unreported and often ignored by the authorities. Due to patriarchal customs of Guinea this work is hard.
Women Helping Women has been operating as an indigenous NGO in Guinea since 2004. The President, Officers, Advisors, Mentors and Clients are all Guinean. We believe the success of this program is based on local leadership on the front-line. WHW provide a comprehensive program to help girls go to school and to help them remain in school. This is accomplished through working with the Parents especially fathers. Education elevates a girl from early marriage, house chores and abuse.
When you educate a girl, she will have improved health, marketable skills, leadership potential, and be involved with and aware of her community both politically and socially. Educated girls become happy healthy women who raise happy health male and female children who become great citizens of the world. We therefore intend to sensitize the population to abandon practices that violate the rights of girls and women. To this end we will continue to support the education of girls.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
