Educational support for girls in Ethiopia

Dear Friends of Enhance Worldwide,

You truly have made an impact through our Educational Support for Girls in Ethiopia project:

• 2 GlobalGiving Projects, 1 fully funded
• 96 donors
• $11,884 raised to date, through social media alone

Your support and action could not come at a more critical time.  UNESCO Dakar reports (May 2018) 52 million girls out of school have no access to education in sub Saharan Africa and the completion rate for girls' lower secondary education is only 31%.  

The most significant barriers to girls' educational enrollment and completion are disparate gender norms, school-related gender based violence, pregnancy, child marriage, and poverty.  Our Kinship Care program, Rising Autonomy program, and Pathways Project -- through your generous support -- challenge the way discrimination, poverty, and inequality uniquely impact girls and young women.

During the school year, our field team works with local partners to ensure access to education and healthy mentoring relationships, teaching essential life skills, investing in girlhood through play-focused workshops and activities, providing Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) to mitigate barriers to education and increase health and wellbeing, and fostering economic independence through financial literacy education.  Your support ensures our programs reach over 150 direct beneficiaries each school year.

The upcoming summer break from school significantly increases risks: life out of school remains a harrowing place for many girls and young women in Ethiopia.  In June 2015, our first summer program launched, stemming from an emergency request from participants and local partners.  The program has grown over the previous three summers, actively creating safe spaces for girls to be girls, not threatened by child marriage, trafficking, or street violence.

This summer program -- our fourth -- represents an exciting organizational milestone: our entire summer program will be funded exclusively by your GlobalGiving donations!  Thank you for responding so generously to this life-saving need.  Thank you for funding the critical academic and social support required to keep these girls on the educational continuum.  Thank you for standing up for girls.

Dear Friends of Enhance Worldwide,

January 2018 marks the third anniversary of Enhance Worldwide being operational in the Entoto area of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, actively challenging the threats of child marriage, institutional care (orphanage), street violence, heightened risk for HIV/AIDS, and trafficking.  To mark this milestone, and all of our participants' continued success, we are celebrating with a holiday party and life skills event through our Pathways Project!  

Girls and young women need life skills like confidence, assertiveness, and critical thinking to navigate the risks and challenges on the road out of poverty.  Our Pathways Project provides opportunities for girls and young women to learn these essential skills in a safe, secure, and youth-friendly environment.  Each month, we develop workshops responding to the critical needs of the girls and young women in our programs.  

Enhance Worldwide is growing and you can help! Our Rising Autonomy program supports young women from impoverished households in the early years of their independence. The program is based on the fact that privilege emerges from privilege whereas social mobility is increasingly rare.  In order to ensure that girls from underprivileged backgrounds foster agency, we support them until they are living independently. This might mean financial aid and support services for a university or vocational school, lease assistance for their first apartment, financial literacy, or mentoring and support with life skills and healthy relationships. While many organizations cease support upon high school graduation, we recognize the vulnerability of young adults and established this program to create a tangible pathway to independence. Any contribution will help create this pathway.

Our field team and Board of Directors work tirelessly to expand our program offerings, program reach, and the number of constituents served in the Entoto area of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We can’t wait to see the courageous action Enhance Worldwide will take in 2018! 

• Enhance Worldwide January 2018 Newsletter (PDF)