Valuable Girl: Empower 100,000 Girls in Egypt

“Education is the premise of progress, in every society, and every family” Kofi Annan. Transforming children’s attitude towards the importance of education is one of Coptic Orphans main goals for the children participating in its programs. The Valuable Girl Project works on encouraging girls to embrace education as essential to their personal prosperity and development. Girls in Egypt, especially in high poverty areas, encounter daily challenges that stand in the way of their academic advancement. The harsh economic conditions, social oppression to women and girls, and the general societal inclination to support boys more than girls in education are deep-rooted issues that VGP tries to remedy one day at a time. In this report, we bring to you some testimonies about VGP’s role in changing the girls’ performance at school and self-growth in one of the villages in Upper Egypt.

In one of our field visits, we met with Father Abanoub Ibrahim, the CEO of the Better Life Association for Community and Sustainable Development, in Assiut governorate. Fr. Abanoub told us about the huge transformation that VGP made in the village where it is implemented. “The project achieved positive results and surpassed all my expectations,” said Fr. Abanoub. The story he told was of a little girl in primary school called Magda who used to hate going to school. Magda’s mother used to have a very hard time encouraging her to study, and the best she could hope for was for her daughter to pass her exams with no ‘F’ grades.  After being a participant in VGP, Magda was able to pass her exams and came in first place among her classmates. This is very impressive. Can you believe it?! From a girl who didn’t want to go to school to a passionate student pursuing the highest grades!

Not only was the impact of VGP evident in the academic advancement of girls, but it also showed in their general demeanor and outlook on life and towards themselves. Fr. Abanoub said that the families are impressed by the positive change they see in their daughters who look happy, clean, proactive, and creative in implementing the project activities. “Girls became expressive, optimistic and passionate about their future and themselves. I’ve never seen their potential before, but now I can testify to their talents and capabilities” said Fr. Abanoub.

Witnessing such significant impact is what drives us to keep working on and pushing for girls empowerment in Egypt. We believe that education is a fundamental tool to equip our children with the skills and characteristics to become proactive and successful in their communities and society at large.

Thank you for your partnership with us, donations to our cause, and trust in the impact we can make in the lives of those precious girls and young women.

Valuable Girl Program aims to empower girls on multiple levels: intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral. VGP aims to capacitate girls psychologically, increase their social active participation in order for them to become the base of positive and safe future generation in Egypt. The program targets girls between 10 years (Little sisters) to 21 years (Big Sisters) who live in disadvantaged areas such as Upper Egypt (UE) and urban and unplanned areas in Cairo. One of VGP’s active tools to achieve its objectives is the mentorship sessions. The sessions allow the Big and Little Sisters to bond, share and learn values, and sometimes solve problems. Today’s success story is about the role of mentoring sessions in building a solid psychological capital of the Little Sister and raising the awareness about her personal rights.

UE is broadly known as a deprived area where people lack many basic services, financial resources, awareness of basic rights, and low education. The absence of rights-based enlightenment leads to inevitable retrogression on the individual/personal and collective/social levels. Marian (a Christian Big Sister in college) met Omaima (a Muslim Little Sister in 4^th grade) at one of the CDAs in their area. Omaima lives in a village where her family has a low income, her parents are divorced, and she is the oldest of four children. Due to her life circumstances, Omaima was introvert, hardly participate in a group activity, had weak academic performance and she couldn’t get private tutoring. Marian was so compassionate to help Omaima to improve at school. The mentoring session deepened the relation and trust between them and encouraged Omaima to share some of her family and personal problems. Omaima was physically abused by her school teacher who wanted to force her to get private tutoring with him. Marian encouraged Omaima to complain about her school teacher to the principal. Despite the principal ignored her complaint at first, Omaima put her foot down and defended her rights and defended herself from the teacher’s abuse by continuously raising her complaints to the principal. Finally, the principal responded to Omaima’s pleads and officially warned the teacher regarding his attitude.  Gradually, Omaima improved at school and developed an unwavering trust in Marian, her Big Sister. This encouraged Omaima’s mother to share more of their family issues with Marina because of her wisdom and maturity. Marian helped Omaima’s mother to get more child support from her ex-husband because he was taking advantage of the mother’s ignorance and lack of awareness of her rights. Omaima concluded her experience by saying “I had no self-confidence, distrusted people, felt afraid of Christians, but you (talking to her Big Sister) made me love all Christians and myself. I aspire to be of value to my family and help support them financially in the future. Thank you Ms. Marian”.

VGP’s mission was accomplished in Omaima and Marian’s lives by teaching them the peaceful co-existence and service to others. Through your steady support and generous donations, we will help more like Marian and Omaima to live better and become aware of their rights.

The Valuable Girl Project’s (VGP) model of empowering girls, creating a space for peacebuilding and interfaith-dialogue lends a model of sustainable development to the local community, where the model can be sustained even after the program’s 2-year cycle ends. One of the greatest achievements of the VGP is fostering religious tolerance between Christian and Muslim girls. It is corroborated by hundreds of stories from the field and testimonies on increased tolerance of the other, positive behavioral adjustments, and improvements in perceptions of self-worth. This is a quote from one of the Big Sister participants in Assuit- a governorate in Upper Egypt known for sectarian strife:

“Before I joined the Valuable Girl project, I used to dislike interacting with our Christian brothers and sisters and I was initially upset when I learned that the project involves dealing with Christians. When I was assigned to my Christian Little sister, I was amazed by her intelligence, focused attention, and above all, her love for me. Experiencing this positive relationship from her side made me start questioning my attitude towards her in particular, and Christians in general. Participating in the Valuable Girl Program has made a huge positive difference in my life.”

The VGP seizes the opportunity to foster pluralism and religious tolerance by helping Muslim and Christian girls realize the similar challenges they equally face at different stages in their lives, as well as the potential opportunities they have by recognizing their self-value, discovering their talents, continuing their education and pursuing different future paths than their peers in the past.

The design of VGP also takes into consideration the intersectionality of women and countering violent extremisms. It focuses on the importance of tackling the root causes of intolerance and sectarian strife, making it essential to integrate the component of interaction between Muslim and Christian girls and young women. This aspect of program design and implementation is not to be found in any other development interventions in Egypt.

We believe that education, self-empowerment, and peacebuilding are the core dynamics that change communities, starting from the grass-root levels. By God’s blessings and your continuous support and encouragement, we – Coptic Orphans, through the VGP- will keep our commitment of helping the girls to prosper and become change-makers of their communities.

By God’s grace and your support for our work, we would like to share with you some joyful news and stories about the Valuable Girl Project (VGP) in Egypt. In June 2018, the Muslim and Christian Big Sisters and Little sisters came together to celebrate Ramadan by organizing an Iftar dinner in the Governorate of Minya. The girls came together to share laughter, fun stories, and warm feelings with their mentors and with the other guests. In a show of inter-communal solidarity, and in honor of Ramadan, the Muslim Holy Month, the girls in the program designed a frame which read: “Ramadan is better with the Valuable Girl Project”. They took many pictures with each other, with their supervisors, and with local religious and community leaders who were in attendance inside the frame.

Besides its communal role in building bridges between Muslims and Christians, the Valuable Girl Project works on a personal level with the girls in the program. We want to share with you some of the remarkable successes of the students. In Manlawy, a town in the governorate of Minya, one of the Little Sisters, Mary*, experienced an amazing change in her attitude towards school, her grades, and even appearance. Before joining VGP, she lived in a poor neighborhood where very few people are educated and her chances of attending college were very low. After joining VGP, and getting the support of her Big Sister, Mary showed noticeable change in her educational performance. She began performing better and became one of the best students in her school during the fifth grade. The teachers and the schoolmasters wondered where this big shift came from, and asked Mary about the reasons for her improvement. Mary told her teachers and the schoolmaster about the mentoring she receives from her VGP Big Sister.

Because the schoolmaster was so amazed by Mary’s change, he wrote a letter of appreciation to VGP staff to acknowledge Mary’s improvement in school. He highlighted the project’s impact on her by saying “she has changed in her looks, manners, and now has outstanding educational performance. Also, she is unique and different from her peers”. The schoolmaster thanked the project for its role and wished the team all the best of luck.

Big and Little sisters in the program often express how their lives change after they join the Valuable Girl Project. One of the Big Sisters said “my self-esteem improved after I took the responsibility of mentoring my Little Sister”. Because of your constant support for VGP, we have reached over 700 girls in disadvantaged areas all around Egypt, and with your support we look forward to reaching many more.



*Names and locations changed to maintain the privacy of our participants.

On March 8, women all over the world celebrated International Women’s Day. As the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated, “This year, International Women’s Day comes on the heels of unprecedented global movement for women’s rights, equality and justice. Sexual harassment, violence and discrimination against women has captured headlines and public discourse, propelled by a rising determination for change. International Women’s Day 2018 is an opportunity to transform this momentum into action, to empower women in all settings, rural and urban, and celebrate the activists who are working relentlessly to claim women’s rights and realize their full potential.”

And programs like the Valuable Girl Project aim to do just that—empower girls and women on several levels, as they face issues of social isolation, economic vulnerability, gender-based violence, and lack of access to health care and education. By supporting the Valuable Girl Project, you are taking an active role in empowering these girls to tackle and overcome these difficult issues they would otherwise face.

This year, on March 8, our Valuable Girls in Qena celebrated International Women’s day with a field trip to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut; a woman who achieved military victories and explorations around the world! Her temple chronicles the greatness and emphasizes the capabilities of women since ancient times. Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple is a symbol of appreciation to the status of women during Pharaohnic times in Egypt.

In Cairo, the “Big sisters” of the Valuable Girl Project also celebrated International Women’s Day, by putting on a special performance for their “Little sisters” at the Community Development Association in Matrya.

Thank you for helping us honor girls and women, not just on International Women's Day, but throughout the year. It is only through God’s grace and your generous support which makes it possible for us to implement the Valuable Girl Project’s Big Sister-Little Sister mentoring initiative throughout many regions in Egypt. You are helping us provide hundreds of young girls with the chance to gain skills, understand their worth, stay in school, avoid early marriage, gain dignity in the classroom and at home, and ultimately become leaders in their local communities!