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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – In rural Upper Egypt, 26 percent of girls aged 13 to 19 don’t go to school, or they drop out after just one or two years. Recognizing that formal schools are the primary setting in which most young people acquire the productive skills needed for adulthood, the Population Council and a team of partner organizations developed the Ishraq program.
As girls in developing countries transition into adulthood, they frequently experience social, educational, and economic limitations. In response, Ishraq (which means “sunrise” in Arabic) was established to help marginalized rural girls develop and mature in safe learning environments.
Since August 2001, Ishraq has supported out-of-school girls aged 12 to 15 years by using an innovative social support and skills-building focus that encourages formal school attendance. Its curriculum, while aiming to foster entry or re-entry into formal education, emphasizes literacy and life skills with special attention to reproductive health, civic engagement, and peer learning.
Ishraq also provides the girls with an opportunity—unprecedented in Egypt—to play games and sports, enabling them to gain confidence and develop teamwork and networking skills. The program also mobilizes the entire community and helps set the stage for an environment that is conducive to and accepting of social change. The Population Council and its partners have just launched an expansion of Ishraq. Over the next three years, the Ishraq program will be made available in an additional 30 villages, bringing the total to 54.
Ishraq is part of a Population Council effort to explore factors that affect school enrollment and retention decisions in some of the world’s poorest countries. In particular, the Council supports a variety of pilot scholarship and livelihoods programs and conducts research on school access and school quality. Population Council staff members also focus on gender differences in school, including assessing teacher attitudes about the capabilities of boys and girls and evaluating classroom dynamics.
In Malawi, researchers are conducting a study to assess the impact that primary school quality and students’ schooling experiences have on educational outcomes and transitions to adulthood. Both girls and boys in this densely-populated, very poor country must manage the challenges of poverty. The project aims to determine the critical aspects of schooling that will help guide children onto a safer, healthier, and more productive path to adulthood.
In Sudan, education has been neglected in the emergency relief efforts. A Population Council research project seeks to understand the relationship between education and the protection and well-being of youth and children in emergency situations. The study aims to identify the impact that school quality can have on the health and safety of displaced youths in the region. The Council staff plans to use these findings to form recommendations for improved educational policies and programs to support the needs of displaced children and youth.
The Population Council focuses on the transitions to adulthood of girls in Egypt and other poor countries because the education and empowerment of girls leads to an array of measurable benefits for them, their families, their communities, and the world.
The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental research organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations around the world and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources. The Council conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research and helps build research capacities in developing countries. Established in 1952, the Council is governed by an international board of trustees. Its New York headquarters supports a global network of regional and country offices.
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