Ishraq: Reaching the Girls Left Behind

1
Ishraq Reaching the Girls Left Behind

• A program in Egypt implemented by
• Save the Children
• Population Council
• CEDPA
• Caritas Egypt
• Egyptian National Council of Youth

2
Save the Children Seeking a Youth Strategy

• Diverse portfolio worth 40 million annually
• Programming spans our sectoral units
• Wide range of youth (age 10-24)
• Diverse outcomes sought (employment, health,
  education, delayed marriage, etc)
• How to identify strategic focus?

3
Why Adolescent Girls?

• Need
• Poverty passed onto the next generation via
  adolescent girls
• Face of HIV epidemic is increasingly young girls
• Maternal, infant mortality concentrated in young
  mothers

• Opportunity
• Young girls gender roles are still being formed
• Educate a girl and you educate a family
• Opportunity to engage the entire community
  (leaders, parents, boys)

4
Adolescence closes doors for some

• Meet Raya Montasser Zaid, a 14-year-old girl
  from Dallas, Beni Suef.
• She left school at 10 does work at home, some
  daily labor in fields has anemia.
• Her future early marriage, becoming a child
  mother, domestic seclusion.

5
Rural Upper Egypt Adolescent Girls A Profile of
Vulnerability (baseline, 01)

• Illiteracy
• Early marriage
• FGC
• High maternal, infant mortality
• Restricted mobility
• Limited decision making

• 54 out of school
• 20 married (16-19)
• 88 (13-19)
• 89 MMR, 62 IMR
• 5 visited nearby city
• 50 no influence of marriage timing

6
Adolescent Girls Globally

• 100 million girls at risk of early marriage
• 70,000 girls die annually from pregnancy-related
  complications
• Africa 50-70
• affected by HIV
• 6,000 HIV
• infections daily, 2/3
• girls
• 88.5 million female
• child laborers
• 70 million out of
• school, 55 girls

7
Ishraq New life opportunities
Local youth centers deliver Literacy life
skills sports Chance to enroll in school
8
The Ishraq Story

• A negotiated package
• Peer introduction by veteran youth centers
• Support girls through re-entry into school
• National champions
• Governmental
• scale-up partner

9
Program Results

• Baseline-Endline Results (01-04)
• 65 felt strong and able to face any problem
• More influence over marriage timing, partner
  selection (73 and 87 strong influence, vs 25 and
  66 for control group)
• Better than literacy-alone programs (47 enrolled
  in school at endline vs 6 for literacy control
  group)
• Population Council surveys

• Program Results
• 92 of Ishraq participants passed gvmt literacy
  exam
• 62 enrolled in school
• Cumulative results 13 villages 598 completed
  course 217 enrolled in school

10
Challenges to Adolescent Programming

• How to identify those at risk early on?
• How to do proactive, not remedial programming?
• What protective
• assets, factors will
• help empower
• these girls?
• How to build their
• assets in a socially
• acceptable way?

11
Directions Worth Exploring

• Timely investment before puberty
• Protective environment find local champions to
  engage gatekeepers
• Program platform safe, public space
• Social assets credible adult mentors, supportive
  peer networks
• Engaging package sports and
• life skills with literacy curriculum
• Realistic opportunities enrolling
• in school