Gender Equality Zambia Project #48405

End Period Poverty for 200 Girls in Kafue, Zambia

by African Education Program

Project Report | Aug 29, 2022
Charting the Success Story of Maureen

By Pamela O'Brien | Development Director

Maureen and her mother

Maureen was born and raised in Chanyanya, a rural fishing village located near the Kafue River approximately 16 miles from the town of Kafue. In this ‘fisherman’s village’ there aren’t many opportunities for girls, and oftentimes, young girls are married off early to men old enough to be their fathers or grandfathers. This marks an end to their dreams and aspirations in life.

Luckily for Maureen, she was raised by a single mother who wanted more for her child. Maureen's mother not only raised four children by herself, she also ran her own business selling fish to provide for her family while encouraging her children to pursue an education.

In 2016, upon writing and passing her grade 7 exams, Maureen was awarded a scholarship to continue secondary school through AEP’s Rural Outreach Program. The Rural Outreach Program was created to provide the most marginalized girls and boys from Chanyanya scholarships to access to high school and AEP’s holistic after-school programs at their Learning & Leadership Center in Kafue. Education in Chanyanya ends in the 9th grade unless a family has the resources to have their children attend school in Kafue.

As a beneficiary of the AEP's Rural Outreach Program, Maureen was able to attend secondary school without having to worry about paying mandatory school fees. As a part of AEP's holistic support, Maureen also didn't have to worry about finding food to eat as AEP's Nutrition Program provided a full, nutritious meal each day. And thanks to AEP's Health Program, Maureen was provided with menstrual health products and training so that she wouldn't have to experience period poverty and miss a day of school.

From the time that she completed secondary school and entered AEP's College Prep Program, Maureen decided to dedicate her mandatory gap year between high school and college to volunteering at AEP’s Learning & Leadership Center, teaching the 12th grade Biology and Mathematics classes and becoming a mentor and role model to her younger peers.

This summer, Maureen applied to study abroad in the United States through a partnership that AEP developed with SUNY Schenectady County Community College in New York. She was among eleven students in AEP’s College Prep Program who applied to SUNY Schenectady's Joan R. Dembinski '10 Study Abroad Scholarship, a full scholarship towards a two-year diploma. Maureen will be studying Math and Science at SUNY Schenectady. She chose this program as it will help her achieve her biggest dream, to become an Electrical Engineer. When asked why she chose electrical engineering, she said that the lack of electricity in her village was her motivation.

As Maureen continues to chart her own path of success, we thought it was equally important to share what she had to overcome. AEP opens the doors of opportunity for girls like Maureen so that they can step through them and achieve their dreams. Thank you for helping us make this happen!

Links:

From Zambia to America: The Story of Ngambela and Maureen

Permalink

Apr 29, 2022
Measuring Program Effectiveness for Better Impact

By Pamela O'Brien | Development Director

Monitoring and evaluation are critical for building a strong evidence base around period poverty and for assessing the wide, diverse range of interventions being implemented to address it. At the global level, it is a tool for identifying and documenting successful programs and approaches and tracking progress toward common indicators across related projects. Monitoring and evaluation form the basis of strengthening understanding around the many multi-layered factors underlying period poverty, adolescent girls experience with menstrual health hygiene and the deliverance of menstrual health training and sustainable menstrual health products.

Recently, the Reuse Rise Rejoice Project had the opportunity to partner with Ivy Mong’are, a University of Pennsylvania Master of Public Administration candidate at the Fels Institute of Government for her final Capstone Project. We were extremely excited for Ms. Mon’gare to work with not only AEP’s Programs Director in Kafue, Zambia, but also our Monitoring & Evaluation Department to measure the success of our menstrual health program.

Ms. Mon’gare began her research in January 2021 and queried 238 participants. For her Qualitative study, she also spoke to teachers, parents, and a small focus group of 6 female students. In her findings, 79% of program participants preferred reusable pads while only 16% preferred menstrual cups. This shows us that we have more work to do educating the participants on the use and benefits of menstrual cups.

When participants were asked how our program affects their households and the greater communities, 97% of all participants report that access to free menstrual products reduced the financial strain on their household. 67% of all participants report that members of their community are interested in learning about reproductive and menstrual health. 68% of AEP participants report that members of their community have changed their menstrual products after learning about other options through AEP.

In the findings, we also learned that 57% of participants reported that their reusable pads took too long to dry. All of the participants are provided with a pack of 5 pads, however, during the rainy season in Zambia, the pads cannot be hung outside to dry. We are excited to learn that parents were eager to talk about the program and share how the program has changed their children's lives.

Among several things, the report recommended that AEP invest in smaller menstrual cups. This is certainly something we are looking into as well as building upon our menstrual and reproductive health education.

To view Ms. Mong’are’s full report, visit: https://vimeo.com/703115714/722a7f07c6

Thank you for investing in girls lives at the African Education Program!

Links:

Reuse Rise Rejoice Presentation - Capstone Project

Permalink

Dec 30, 2021
Mwalii Leaders Have Arrived!!

By Pamela O'Brien | Development Director

Nyali Scholarship Fund

For a long time, we have struggled with how to refer to the all-important group of girls, boys, and young women and men who take advantage of the African Education Program (AEP)’s Learning and Leadership Center in Kafue, Zambia. Calling them participants does not speak to their level of commitment. Beneficiaries takes away their ownership. So we asked them what they would like to be called.

They came up with Mwalii Leaders, standing for Motivated, Worthy, Accepted, Loved, Inspired, and Inclusive.

Click here to watch a video intro to see how a Mwalii Leader grows from Mbewe (meaning seed) as young learners all the way to Banja (meaning family) when they become alumni.

Let’s shift gears to the 2022 Nyali Scholarship Fund. Zambia recently elected a new president, Hakainde Hichilema. He represents hope and a new beginning for the country. As a part of his agenda, he announced that, in 2022, education will be free through 12th grade.

The school fee payments that AEP previously made as a part of a Nyali Scholarship enabled Mwalii Leaders to continue their education in public schools. However, these school fees were just a small part of the offerings provided through a Nyali Scholarship. Most importantly, scholarships meant Mwalii Leaders could access all of the afterschool programs, including quality academic tutoring and leadership development, offered at AEP’s Learning and Leadership Center. At the same time, costs to attend college have increased and the number in College Prep continues to grow.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic’s devastating effects on the Mwalii Leaders’ morale are clear. Their families have equally suffered.

This is why Nyali Scholarships are needed more than ever.
They enable AEP to continue its work to build the Mwalii Leaders’
self-esteem, resilience, and leadership skills, as well as create
safe academic learning opportunities.

Since AEP’s 15-Year Anniversary Celebration, we have been reflecting a lot on our programs and why they work and we keep coming back to the word “interwoven.” All of AEP’s programs weave together to create a fabric of opportunity for the Mwalii Leaders to overcome daily challenges, dream big, reach their full potential, and become the leaders that their communities deserve.

For example, you may not know that the Njila (College Prep) facilitate most of the one-on-one and small group academic tutoring for their younger peers. At the same time, they access an essential program that prepares them for the next step in their educational journey and eventual careers.

Another example is Read for Rose Special Education Program where eighteen Mwalii Leaders with disabilities learn academic and life skills. The most inspiring learning takes place during integrated learning between those at Read for Rose and their peers without disabilities.

These two programs join our Nutrition Program and our Health Program, and several others, to provide significant value to what is offered through a Nyali Scholarship, AEP has never specifically raised funds for them because of their interwoven nature. So, this year, AEP is moving away from defining Nyali Scholarships by individual levels (high school and college).

We hope that you will join us in viewing the Nyali Scholarship Fund as a mechanism to ensure that all of the Mwalii Leaders, of all ages, can access all of AEP’s interwoven programs.

We also hope you will continue to support the girls and young women who are helping us end period poverty in Kafue. As Mwalii Leaders they are becoming peer educators to lift up the next generation of youth in a bold way. But, we can not do this without you.

Will you join us in supporting our Mwalii Leaders today? Click on this link for more details.

We wish you a prosperous and healthy New Year!

--The African Education Program

Links:

Nyali Scholarship Fund

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.