Girls` Education
Keep Girls in School Initiative
Girls` access to Education
Girls Space Empowerment strives to improve girls ‘access to quality education by address issues that denied girls access to education and creating opportunities for girls. Girls Space engages in activities that promotes girls` right to education and provide educational support such as advocacy, raising awareness, scholarships, sponsorship, school supplies and other support.
Keep Girls in School Initiative:
School-Based Chapters
Girls Space Empowerment helps keep girls in school and successfully finish their secondary school education by addressing the barriers to girls’ education, encourage and inspire girls to focus on their study, and provide the support they need to achieve their education. Girls Space strives to help empower girls, improve academic performance, prevent teenage pregnancy and child marriage, reduce sexual and gender-based violence, and reduce girls` school dropout rates.
Girls Space Empowerment offers weekly sessions and activities in primary and secondary schools, including homework and tutorial assistance, study strategies, reading, spelling, debate, public speaking, exam preparation, career planning, life skills, girls` talk, leadership skills training, technology and media literacy, workshops on various topics, social and recreational activities, and other empowering activities. We offer extended learning opportunities such as inspiring and supporting girls to pursue career opportunities in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and After School Program to help girls facing greater academic challenges. Girls Space also provides need-based support and scholarships to cover cost of education for girls facing challenges, such as uniform, school supplies, shoes, transportation, sanitary menstrual sanitary pads, extra class fees and other support.
Girls STEM Education Initiative
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
The Girls STEM Club is an initiative that create a a safe place to help inspire, support, and empower girls to explore career options in STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Intercommunity Scholarship Program
LET`S HELP 20 GIRLS WITH THEIR EDUCATION THIS YEAR
Intercommunity Scholarship Program provides financial assistance to girls who have displayed exceptional initiatives, academic performance, and needs to assist them in pursuant of their post-secondary education. The scholarships are generously sponsored by Intercommunity Development Organization, individual and corporate partners.
Awards
Girls Space gives awards to recognize dedicated girls leads, girls` ambassadors and other young female leaders and girls who are making a difference in the lives of other girls and young women and promoting the Girls Space and Intercommunity. The awards embody our desire to inspire girls to help make a difference in their communities and promote girls’ rights.
Menstrual Pad Initiative
The menstrual pad initiative strives to provide menstrual pads to girls in need and empower them to stay in school by educating them on menstrual hygiene management and reproductive health. Girls Space also help to end stigma, raise awareness, and engage in advocacy to support girls.
Girls` Education Sponsorship Initiative
Support for girls to attend school and further their education is one of the most evident needs in the community, and the request we hear most often from parents, family, and the girls.
While primary and secondary schools are free, the associated costs of schooling such as uniform, school supplies, shoes, transportation, sanitary menstrual sanitary pads, extra class fees and other barriers often make it impossible for poor families to send their daughters to school or cause girls to drop out of school. Parents or guardians facing financial difficulty have to choose between putting food on the table and educating their daughters. The Girls` education sponsorship initiative help to address the inequality in access to education by covering cost of schooling to ensure that girls have access to the support they need to attend school. The initiative is generously sponsored by individuals and corporate partners.
Issues
Despite progress in girls` enrollment in primary schools due in part to the free quality education, there is a growing concern of high rates of girl`s school dropout throughout the country. Girls may drop out of school due to cost of education, loss of parent, lack of parental care, lack of support and encouragement, sex for grade, menstruation, teenage pregnancy, child marriage, sexual and gender-based violence.
There are still many girls in Sierra Leone who have never attended school or failed to continue their education. According to UNICEF, about 46% of adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 do not know how to read and write, while 72% of boys and young men are literate. More girls are still denied access to education than boys due to poverty, cultural norms about gender roles and sexuality, gender inequality, child marriage, and more. Poverty is one of the most important factors for determining whether a girl can stay in school and complete her education or drop out of school or never go to school. Poor household families often lack the resources to pay for their children`s schooling including associated costs such as uniforms, shoes, school supplies, transportation, extra class fees, and other needed expenses. With limited resource, they would focus on putting food on their tables and providing other basic needs such as housing, clothing, and caring for their families rather than paying for their children` education, especially for daughters because of negative cultural norm and attitudes towards girls’ education. In some culture or poor households, families invest in boys’ education rather than girls because boys may be seen as future breadwinners. As such, they send boys to school while keeping girls at home to prepare them for their roles as wife and mother, and to help with household chores, care for their siblings and other family members, or engage in petty trading to support the family. Girls in some other countries, especially developing countries experience similar barriers to access education. Intercommunity has joined the global social movements supporting girls’ access to education.