Educating and Empowering 1,000 Girls in Ethiopia

Pathfinder International – Ethiopia

Educating and Empowering 1,000 Girls in Ethiopia

Quarterly Report May 2013

Pathfinder International is pleased to report that since our last update, we have made significant progress on launching our project. In the past quarter, we have completed the following activities:

Our team held preliminary meetings with the Amhara and Addis Ababa Women’s Associations to inform them of the project and to begin thinking about girls to be selected for scholarships and leadership roles
in girls’ clubs.  From the Amhara region, the Dera woreda was selected as a
target area for the project as school dropout rates among girls is high because of poverty and early marriage. In Dera woreda, our staff held a half-day consultative meeting to establish a scholarship beneficiary selection committee.
The committee will be composed of eight members of the Amhara Women’s Association, the head of the woreda  administration bureau, the head of the education bureau, school administrators, and current gender club leaders,
a student representative, and a Pathfinder coordinator.

From Addis Ababa, four schools in Yeka sub-city will be targeted as many of the students from these schools are coming from slums and face extreme poverty.  In addition to the four schools selected by the project, he Addis Ababa Women’s Association selected three secondary schools: Salyesh secondary school (Yeka sub-city), Debreselam school (Kechena sub-city) , and Beherawe Betemengest school (Arada sub city). The same kind of
scholarship committee mentioned above was established for this target area.

Since the creation of the committees, 30 female students (20 from Amhara region and 10 from Addis Ababa) have been recruited to receive scholarship benefits and begin participation in established girls’ clubs at their school. Once these girls are approved and enrolled, the project will provide details about their backgrounds.

Links:

• Pathfinder Ethiopia