When you educate a man you educate an individual; when you educate a woman you educate a whole family.

- Robert Morrison Maclver

WomensTrust Builds Primary School Addition

The new addition for the overcrowded Nil Otto Kwame Primary School was completed this summer through fund-raising and volunteer efforts coordinated by WomensTrust.

700 Girls

awarded scholarships to stay in school

SEE OUR RESULTS

Education

WomensTrust has instituted a scholarship program in the local public schools for Pokuase’s brightest girl students. We also have an enrichment component that allows the most gifted to visualize a future for today’s girls beyond the limited traditional paths of their mothers. When our scholarship candidates learn that they are guaranteed an education through senior secondary school, they begin to see options. They do indeed become the hope for long-term change.

WomensTrust sponsors two programs in Pokuase and has partnered with Educational Pathways International in order to encourage girls to stay in school:

~Keep-Girls-In-School is a scholarship program established by WomensTrust in September of 2004.

~Girls Exploration and Empowerment Club was established by WomensTrust in the Fall of 2007 as an after school enrichment program to support girls in their studies. It is also known as the GEEC Club.

~Educational Pathways International is a United States-based non-profit foundation that recognizes, nurtures, and supports gifted young people in developing areas of the world through university scholarships, thus enabling them to develop their talents and make a positive difference in their native land.

Research clearly shows that when girls are educated all quality-of-life indicators improve: educated women have smaller families, live longer and healthier lives, and follow more stable economic paths. Yet, education in Ghana has been traditionally focused on male children. In Pokuase, fewer than 50% of girls finish junior high school. Girls are routinely taken out of school to do chores and support their families.

Literacy rates in Ghana are 49.8% for females and 66.4% for males (according to the CIA World Factbook).

There is a saying coined by sociologist Robert Morrison MacIver that is driving a change in attitude in Ghana: "When you educate a man you educate an individual; when you educate a woman you educate a whole family."

It costs a family $100 U.S. per year to send a child to primary school, $125 per year for junior secondary school (JSS), and $250 per year for senior secondary school (SSS). Women living on $2 a day or less struggle to feed their families, therefore school, in many cases, is prohibitively expensive.