USAID/Sierra Leone: Girls' Scholarship Program Begins in Sierra Leone

JUNE 22, 2005

Girls' Scholarship Program Begins in Sierra Leone

The Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program, funded by USAID, will award scholarships to 3,000 grade school girls in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Sierra Leone.

The United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Thomas N. Hull, announces the Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program AGSP), which will award scholarships to 3,000 primary school girls in Sierra Leone.

The program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is part of the African Education Initiative (AEI) announced by U.S. President George Bush in 2002. The $200 million, five-year AEI program is designed to provide young African girls greater access to quality educational opportunities.

In Africa, girls account for 60 percent of the approximately 42 million children who are not enrolled in school. The AEI is working to bridge this gender gap by providing 250,000 scholarships for African girls at the primary and secondary levels so that they can grow up to assume greater participation in the educational, political, and economic sectors of their countries.

The AGSP program in Sierra Leone will focus on girls' retention and completion of primary education. Scholarships will be granted in the form of tuition (where applicable), text books, exercise books, uniforms, pair of shoes, pair of socks, book bags, and school feeding programs in targeted districts.

Schoolgirls in Kamadugu Soukarela, a remote village in Kabala, and one of the scholarship intervention zones.

The program will be implemented in regions of Sierra Leone which currently have the lowest girls' enrollment rate (Bombali, Port Loko, Kono, Kailahun and Koinadugu districts). Complementary mentoring programs that will inspire and encourage girls in their educational pursuits will also be implemented, as well as supporting activities focusing on HIV/AIDS mitigation and prevention, and community participation and democracy.

The criteria for selecting the AGSP beneficiaries include but are not limited to: (1) distance from home to school; (2) girls from disabled parents; (3) girls who could not afford to buy school uniforms or supplies during the previous school year, with evidence they will be in the same condition during the proposed girls' scholarship program year; (4) girls from single parent families; (5) orphans with no support; and (6) HIV/AIDS affected girls.

In West Africa, the AEI program will administer over 80,000 scholarships and provide supporting activities in up 15 countries, including: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

The AEI increases young African girls' access to quality basic educational opportunities by concentrating on improving education at the primary school level. Teacher training, textbooks and other learning materials are provided, as is support for community involvement, and scholarships for girls, with particular attention paid to addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS.

The USAID-funded Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program will be implemented in Sierra Leone by U.S. NGO World Education, Inc. through the following partners: the Adventist Development Relief Agency, the Forum for African Women Educationalist, the Network Movement for Justice and Development, the Christian Extension Services, and the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Sierra Leone.

Story and photo by Laura Lartigue