Women Tutoring and Mentoring of Girls Creates a Strong Link Between Literacy and Formal Education

In the village of Noogtenga, Sanmatenga province, 62 women who never attended formal school themselves have become tutors and mentors for school children, most of whom are girls. They are currently doing their best to ensure that students consistently attend classes, earn good grades, and successfully complete at least their primary education in the village’s only school—a school built for them by the BRIGHT (Burkinabé Response to Improve Girls’ Chances To Succeed) project, funded by the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation, managed by USAID, and implemented by NGOs Plan International, Catholic Relief Services, Forum for African Women Educationalists, and Tin Tua.

 

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Meet 3 moms benefiting from our work in maternal health

Every year, 358,000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth. That’s over 800 women every day. 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries and the majority of them are preventable. But access to quality health care can save the lives of thousands of mothers and babies every year.

Plan’s work to improve the health of mothers and their babies has impacted thousands of women in hard-to-reach communities across 7 countries – Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Bolivia. Projects in maternal and newborn health include:

• Training health care workers
• Improving health care services offered to mothers before and after childbirth
• Helping mothers access health care
• Ensuring mothers and babies have access to nutritious food
• Providing crucial vaccinations, medication and appropriate treatment.

See it in action! Meet some of the women benefiting from our Work.

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A Step Forward for the Women of Papua New Guinea

“I was often thought of as crazy,” said Jukuli Kapiako, a CEDPA Global Women in Management (CEDPA GWIM) participant from the Hela Province in Papua New Guinea, also known as PNG. “Where I come from in Tari, our people were thought of as scary, because we had long skinny arms and legs and big bellies. I now know we were malnourished.”

Jukuli is one of 26 Papua New Guinean women leaders, who are attending the three-week long, CEDPA GWIM country-level workshop, sponsored by the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Women’s Economic Opportunity Initiative
. The need for this type of leadership and economic empowerment workshop in PNG is obvious. There were 80 applicants for 26 slots.Læs mere her!

Education Helps Women and Children Recognize Their Value

According to Egyptian Law, a child must be at least 16 years old to obtain employment. However, 46 percent of the 1.96 million working children in Egypt are between the ages of 15 and 17. In Egypt, children as young as 5 are employed as child workers, making them extremely vulnerable to exploitation, maltreatment, and the deprivation of their rights.

Nadia, 13, is from the slum community Khairallah in the south of Cairo. She is one of the 17 percent of working children who work for more than 12 hours a day without receiving a break. With her simple but emotional words, she recalls those days.

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Protecting children from harmful practices in plural legal systems

Millions of children continue to suffer from various forms of harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, early and forced marriage, female infanticide, bonded labour and accusations of witchcraft.

The UN Study on Violence against Children urged states to prohibit by law all forms of violence against children, including harmful practices.

This report reviews positive legislative developments in different regions of the world, with a special emphasis on Africa, to strengthen children’s legal protection from violence as a result of harmful practices, and addresses the interplay between statutory, customary and religious laws.

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Join our safer cities tweet jam on International Women's Day

What one change would you make to your city to improve safety for all? That’s the question we’ll be asking at Plan International’s Twitter channel on International Women’s Day this year (Friday 8 March).

Girls from across the globe have assessed the safety of their streets for the Adolescent Girls' Views on Safety in Cities report. Plan will release the executive summary of the report on International Women's Day.

Join the global conversation on Twitter between 12:00 and 14:00 GMT on 8 March to share a change you'd like to make to your own city using the #bcimagirl hashtag and your own city's hashtag to converse with people from across the world.

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Off the balance sheet: the impact of the economic crisis on girls and young women

This report by Plan and ODI examines the continuing and deepening impact of the economic crisis on girls and young women worldwide.

Long standing economic trends, entrenched gender inequality and austerity budgets have all left girls and their families bearing the brunt of fewer resources and reduced access to services.

Key findings from the report include:

• Girls drop out of school more – with a 29% decrease in primary school completion for girls versus 22% for boys.
• Family poverty hits girls hardest - a 1% fall in GDP increases infant mortality by 7.4 deaths per 1,000 births for girls versus 1.5 for boys.
• Health cuts leave adolescent girls at greater risk during pregnancy with 14-19 year olds most at risk of death in pregnancy in many countries.

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Plan's economic security strategy 2010-2015

This document outlines Plan’s strategy for promoting the economic rights of children and young people.

It focuses on children, young people and women and applies the dual approach of supporting households to reduce vulnerability for children and ensuring that young people are prepared to become economically active adults making a positive contribution to civil society.

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Plan Blangladesh TV game show highlights girls' rights

Plan Bangladesh has launched a television game show to highlight girls’ rights and development issues. The show is called ‘The Plan’, (which stands for Play, Learn, Achieve and Nurture). It pits teams of young men and women against each other in a series of challenges – which test their skills, knowledge and improvisation.

The challenges have been designed to highlight key messages around gender equality, violence against women, sexual harassment and child marriage. The programme is presented Tony Michael Gomes, Plan Bangladesh’s Communications and Public Relations manager. He says, “Reality shows are hugely popular these days and we chose this programme format to exploit its mass appeal”. The intention is that the issues will be brought home to viewers in an engaging and thought-provoking way.

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Girls and women hardest hit by recession, reveals report

Girls are bearing the brunt of the global economic recession – being more likely to experience poverty, reduced life expectancy and drop out of school, according to a new report from Plan and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Long standing economic trends, entrenched gender inequality and austerity budgets have all taken their toll - leavng girls and their families with fewer resources and reduced access to services.

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Understanding the conflict in Mali

Hundreds of people – mainly children and women – have been displaced following conflict in central Mali. Clashes between armed insurgents, the Malian National Army and international forces have been occurring over the past week.

More than 31,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are seeking safety in Segou, located in south-central Mali, and other cities in the surrounding areas.

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Plan India on the instances of growing sexual violence against girls and women

Plan India strongly condemns the recent instance of physical and sexual assault on a young girl and the severe beating of her male companion in a public transport bus in Delhi on the 16th of December, 2012. The young girl died on the 29^th of December,2012.  The violent and extremely brutal nature of the attack on the girl has left us all shocked, angry and concerned about the safety of our country’s girls and women. We also wish to express our deep concern at the growing instances of sexual violence that are being reported against children and women across the country.

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Mat weaving is the key to empowerment

For women in the Tabareybarey refugee camp, making money can be the key to their survival.

Life in a refugee camp is a far cry from life in a village. Refugees from the poorest village would ultimately prefer to return home to life in the camp. A refugee camp is the last resort, a place for shelter when the violence and oppression forces people to leave their homes. Tabareybarey is such a haven for the people leaving northern Mali.

Plan Niger, one of the leading organizations involved in camp management, has initiated several activities to promote income-generating activities for women and adolescent girls in the community.

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Plan International USA Acquires the Centre for Development and Population Activities

Plan International USA and the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) have entered into a formal asset acquisition agreement. In this innovative transaction, CEDPA will join talents and projects with Plan to strengthen existing programs and more effectively protect and promote the rights of women and children around the world.

CEDPA, an international NGO based in Washington, D.C., was one of the first organizations to focus specifically on issues relating to the development and advancement of women. For more than 37 years, CEDPA has transformed the lives of millions of women and girls, making them successful partners in the development of their countries by giving them the tools to improve their lives, and the lives of their family and community members. Program focus includes girls’ education and youth development, increasing access to lifesaving reproductive health and HIV/AIDS services, and strengthening women’s leadership.

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