For many girls in Upper Egypt, being able to read and write can be a dream come true thanks to an innovative public-private educational partnership, reports Nesmahar Sayed My dreams used to be about biscuits and toys, but now they are about books and exercise books," are the words of a song written for the Ishraq programme for promoting the enrolment of girls in education and to celebrate the recent International Literacy Day. Now, with the support of ExxonMobil Egypt and Save the Children, an extension of the three-year programme, Ishraq Plus, has been launched. The project aims to help educate almost a thousand out-of-school adolescent girls in Upper Egypt, providing them with better life chances and economic opportunities. The project is also intended to help improve the economic opportunities of the girls' families by providing mothers with entrepreneurial training and micro-loans to help them engage in income-generating activities and opportunities to improve their status within their families and the wider community. In addition to strengthening the managerial and financial capacities of two local NGOs and eight local youth centres, the project is training 21 master trainers, who will be able to assist in project implementation and ensure its sustainability. The project is intended to help raise community awareness about the importance of education for girls and stress their ability to contribute productively to local communities. Ishraq (enlightenment) has been gaining in strength since a 2001 pilot phase, Saber says, notably by building strong partnerships with private-sector organisations. The charity Save the Children has long been a leading player in the programme. Geof Giacomini, Egypt country director for Save the Children, told the Weekly that the importance of the programme was that it gave girls the right to grow up in a world that cares about their education. Save the Children, which has a network of branches across the Nile Delta and Upper Egypt, represents a broad base from which to interact with children and their families and to deliver results that can make a real difference to their lives. At present, the quality of education in some of these areas can be low, featuring non-participatory teaching approaches, high class numbers and little student exposure to information and communication technologies. In addition, many of the girls opt out of formal education due to early marriages, which in rural areas can be as young as 14. According to a survey carried out by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, Egypt also has some 2.7 million children who are obliged to work to help support their families, some of them beginning to work at as young as seven years old. The first phase of the Ishraq project was implemented in some 40 villages in the governorates of Minya, Beni Sweif and Assiut. It succeeded in improving literacy rates, reducing early marriages and enabling adolescent girls in these areas to play sports and develop intellectually and creatively. During the first phase of the project, lasting from 2008 to 2011, the programme reached 1,000 out-of-school rural adolescent girls in 21 villages in the three governorates. It also issued 821 birth certificates and 193 identity cards, in order to ensure that the girls could claim their civic rights. Some 73 recreational trips were also organised, so that participants could expand their horizons and social networks. Above all, the project aimed to make it possible for girls enrolled in the programme to obtain literacy certificates, enroll in formal schools and establish their own micro-enterprises. It also trained 165 female facilitators in literacy, life skills and the sports curriculum. The programme carried out refurbishing and maintenance of 21 youth centres and equipped them with sports facilities. In the past, most of these centres were exclusively for boys, and girls were not able to go there, said Raya Montasser, a participant from Beni Sweif. In addition to equipping six youth centres in Assiut with computers and printers, the Ishraq Plus programme is expanding into eight more villages in Upper Egypt, also offering technology and language education. Fatma Salah, an Ishraq participant from Assiut, said that her experience had been amazing. "I was living in a dark place, but now things have changed, and there is light and hope. Education is our life and our hope," she said. One of the core aspects in the success of the programme was the support it received from facilitators and from the inhabitants of the villages concerned. "People were suspicious of the programme at first, and parents refused to allow their daughters to apply. But we succeeded in persuading them that girls have a better chance of a respectable life if they learn how to read and write," said Faisal Fathi, the manager of one of the schools in Assiut. Ishraq was also an opportunity for trainers to learn about themselves. "It was my first experience of field work. I was responsible for supervising the facilitators and the standards reached by the girls. 195 girls gained their literacy certificates from the 300 from Assiut who are on their way to receiving theirs," Fatma Hamdy told the Weekly. Ramadan Ghanem, the father of four boys and three girls from Assiut, did not have a marriage certificate or birth certificate for his daughter Laila who participated in the Ishraq programme. Laila, 13, dreams of becoming an architect and of teaching other girls when she grows up. According to Saber, thanks to the programme the girls are offered a life experience that will last forever. "This programme has proved that the private sector, civil society and government entities, when they work together, can help to bring about real and lasting change."
