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UNESCO Felicitates Two Organisation Working in Girl Child Education
Let’s learn more about Shilpa Sayura Foundation & Girl Child Network
UNESCO recently awarded the UNESCO Prize for Girls' and Women’s Education to two organisations for working towards the betterment of female education. The inequity in the education sector based on gender is factual and global, unfortunately. The good thing is that there are non-governmental and non-profit organisations working tirelessly to solve the issue.
On this International Day of the Girl Child (11 October 2020), UNESCO awarded two of such organisations for the upliftment of women/girls via education. Shilpa Sayura Foundation of Sri Lanka is rewarded for its project NextGen Girls in Technology and Girl Child Network of Kenya is recognized for its project Our Right to Learn – Reaching the Unreached.
Shilpa Sayura Foundation of Sri Lanka began in 2006. With a reach of 60,000 youth, it has made a positive impact by enabling access to national education through its several telecentres. With the help of this organization, the rural girls, who are the most vulnerable lacking skills to get a decent job in the booming technology sector, have been able to learn analytical, logical and creative skills.
Its project NextGen Girl in Technology innovates tech-education for girls by introducing a techno-extracurricular program to improve analytical, logical and creative thinking in them, it was actually found to bridge the gap in national STEM education.
Talking about the Girl Child Network in Kenya, it was established in 1995. After converting to an NGO in 2012, it’s grown from one project to multi-sectorial programmes in Education, Health & Nutrition, Human Rights & Legislation, Gender & Governance, Disaster Risk Reduction, Research & Documentation and Institutional Strengthening. Its project Our Right to Learn has the aim to increase access to quality primary education for 47,515 Out Of School Children (OOSC) from resource-poor households in the three counties (Kwale, Garissa and Kajiado counties).
Since 2012, this project has reached 51,936 children in 240 primary schools, including 25,937 girls, through education programmes, gender and disability-friendly school facilities and community-based social mobilization, transforming negative attitudes standing in the way of girls’ education.
Each of the laureates is awarded US$50,000 to help further their work in advancing girls’ and women’s education.
More information on UNESCO.org.