CAIRO: The governorate of Ismailia in Egypt is making history with its Females for Families program. The 2010 UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy was awarded to the province for the program based in the rural town of Abu-Ashur. This was the first award of its kind to be presented to a government agency in the fight against illiteracy. The program targets families, with the belief that the family is the basic unit of society, and with the help of its partners and a group of girls from Abu-Ashur, the program has been successful thus far. With a population of one million, the Ismailia governorate has an overall literacy rate of 78 percent, but hopes to raise it to 93 percent in five years. In Abu-Ashur, all of the 4,000 families earn less than $60 a month with their main occupation being farming. The residents are plagued with problems such as inadequate health and education services, early marriage and widespread child labor. But the people wanted a better life with higher income, more efficient services and improved life skills and so the family-based development was born. After a study was conducted covering everything from basic personal information to attitudes towards the education of girls, the results were analyzed and the program developed. The families designated 120 girls for the rigorous training as development leaders that spanned six months. The girls were trained on various subjects including literacy, health, human rights, income-generation and administrative and communication skills. After the training was completed, these girls returned back to Abu-Ashur to work with their family members on a personalized basis. The girls were just a starting foundation of the program and in addition, there was a permanent resource center in the town. This center was staffed with a doctor, a vet, an education specialist and a loan officer as well as other professionals. Regular information meetings were also held in the province as well as building partnerships and financing micro-enterprises. The trained girls instituted home literacy classes to address the daily problems the people were facing. They communicated information on health, hygiene and family planned as well as training people in cooking, crafts and agriculture. They also accompanied residents to the doctor or vet, encouraged those who had dropped out of school to return and helped secure small loans. These girls became the heart of the program and leaders in their community. They seemed to diminish discrimination about women in the public life. One resident learner was quoted as saying, “Who would believe that those girls would manage to do this?” The program has increased the people's self esteem in a social and cultural breakthrough. This new self-belief stretches further than the reading and writing or even the integration of literacy as party of their everyday life.
