Central Africa 

Cameroon 

In Cameroon, the nonprofit Aumazo works to ensure quality education for young girls, and has built a boarding school that is set to open in 2021 and welcome around 50 female students. Additionally, they have built a road connected to the school so the journey to and from is safer and more accessible. In addition to the Aumazo school, the Sorawell Professional Training Center for Women is working in Cameroon to promote girls’ education and has three programs aimed at targeting poverty, AIDS, prostitution, and early pregnancy (which are the leading causes for girls to drop out of school early). The three programs include general education, culinary education, and business education. 

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Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo almost doubled their education budget from the year 2012 to 2015, raising it from 7.9 percent of its budget to 14.7 percent. Additionally, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government received a $100 million grant from Global Partnership for Education to continue improving upon education in their country. Furthermore, USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) has worked with teachers and administrators on assessing safety and security in schools, further protecting girls and their safety while studying. Also working in the DRC is the Malaika Foundation, which is a nonprofit that seeks to ensure access to clean water, healthcare, and education. They run the Malaika school which provides a free primary and secondary education for over 300 young girls. 

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East Africa 

The Campaign for Female Education, also known as CAMFED, works in communities in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to support young girls and ensure they receive a quality education. Across these eastern African countries, their work has sent over 4 million children to school. 

 

In addition to CAMFED, the Forum for African Women Educationalists (or FAWE for short) has run a sexual reproductive health and rights project over the duration of three years that has reached over 28,000 children in Kenya and Uganda. Education on sexual reproductive health is essential in these countries, as it encompasses information on the dangers of unprotected sex (such as HIV and early pregnancy) which are some of the leading factors that cause girls to drop out of school. The program led to the adoption of ASRH (Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health) rights policies in Uganda and a school re-entry policy for mothers in Kenya.

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Southern Africa 

South Africa 

The dean of education at the University of South Africa at Pretoria ran the Kha ri Gude (Tshivenda for ‘let us learn’) South African Mass Literacy Campaign from 2007 to 2011. The campaign enabled over four million people to learn to read, 80 percent of whom were South African women. 

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Botswana 

In Botswana, a 2017 governmental motion offered free sanitary pads to girls in both public and private schools. This was a monumental decision as 1 in 10 girls in sub-Saharan Africa misses school during their period, according to the Borgen Project. Furthermore, a non-profit called Young 1ove has a course called ‘No Sugar’ that is aimed at eliminating the spread of HIV amongst young girls as a result of sex with older men (as it’s estimated that 40% of HIV cases come from women who are paid to have sex by older men). The course has reached over 300,000 students in more than 300 schools. A study has shown that in schools where the course was taught, early pregnancies (another symptom of unprotected sex) dropped by 30 to 40 percent.

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Swaziland 

While girls in Swaziland have a higher education enrollment rate than their men, there is still a lot to be desired within their educational system. Although 97 percent of girls will enroll in primary education at some point in their lives, only 37.7 percent will then make their way to secondary school, and a measly 5.5 percent will go on to enroll in tertiary education. With almost 60 percent of Swazi people living under the nationally defined poverty line (which is $2 a day), poverty is one of the largest barriers that prevents girls from attending school at higher rates. This poverty rate was only exacerbated by their drought, which made families reliant on agriculture especially vulnerable. 

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West Africa 

Nigeria 

The Malala Fund works in the northern Nigerian states, where the children there account for over 70% of all of the out of school kids in Nigeria. In 2017, they advocated to pass an amendment to the Universal Basic Education Act which guaranteed 12 years of safe, free, and quality education. Today, they are working to pass this legislation in the House and Senate so it can be financed and implemented. Additionally, during the Covid-19 global pandemic, the Malala Fund Nigeria Champions launched an initiative to use radios to teach students during the school closures. 

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Sierra Leone 

Beginning in 2007, Sierra Leone joined the Global Partnership for Education and has since been able to redesign their Education Sector Plan and offer resources to female students through aid. The Girl Child Network in Sierra Leone is currently implementing ‘Girls Empowerment Villages’ where girls who have fallen victim to abuse have the opportunity to learn and receive an education in a safe environment. Additionally, according to the Brookings Institute, in 2020 the ban placed on pregnant students from attending school that was enacted in 2010 was lifted. 

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Ghana 

The nonprofits Oxfam and the Ghana Education Service have worked together to implement girls-only schools where there is decreased risk of gender-based violence. Additionally, since 1995 primary education has been made free to all students, and in 2017 the president announced that free secondary education would be considered an investment in the future workforce. Over $100 million is estimated to have been spent on textbooks, meals, uniforms, etc. during the first year.