Empower Disadvantaged Women and Girls in Ethiopia

In rural parts of Ethiopia, women are the most vulnerable groups who face cultural, social and economical burdens. The main challenges to them include prevalence of harmful traditional practices, limited access to health care services, poor infrastructure, poor transportation facilities, poverty, illiteracy, school dropout rates, lack of income and other related factors. Harmful traditional practices, including female genital cutting, early marriage and childbearing, gender-based violence, forced marriage, wife inheritance, and a high value for large families, all impose huge negative impacts on women’s Reproductive Health (RH). This in turn has reduced their chances to participate in decision making processing and assuming leading position. Limited access to education is the main factor which has hindered the socio-economic development of women and girls in rural areas. To ameliorate the above conditions, Woldeamanueal Dubale Foundation (WaDF) in collaboration with private colleges has managed to provide tuition fee waivered scholarship opportunity for 16 disadvantaged girls who are currently attending education at certificate, diploma and degree levels. This was done through the project entitled Empower Disadvantaged Women and Girls in Ethiopia (12287). During the reporting period, the project was successfully implemented and tried to solve multi-directional problems of girls. Provision of educational material and counseling services were made to few students. The project officer of WaDF are regularly monitoring the performance of the students and encouraging them to attain better academic results. Miss Fanaye Murato is one of the lucky scholarship awardees who is currently attending diploma program in Library Science at Catholic Vocational training College. Miss Martha Nanelo is another girl who is attending the hair dressing skill training at Cozi beauty Training center. Both girls are very happy by the scholarship chance given to them and bright future ahead.