This past week has been an interesting time of ajustment and exploration for me. As I mentioned in my last blog post, my placement was unexpectantly switched. I now am working with an NGO called FAWE (Forum for African Women Educationalists). I will be teaching English at a hish school and doing extracuricular activities with the students. I am very excited for this new opporunity and do believe that it will be an absolutely wonderful and transformational experience. I wanted to know more about FAWE and its mission, values and practices. In one of my courses on international development we needed to write an overview on an NGO, and I had been doing so much research on FAWE already, I figured that it would be a very logical thing to make it my report subject. This is an overview of FAWE.
FAWE (Forum for African Women Educationalists) is an NGO designed to support girls and women to acquire education for development. Five ministers of education founded FAWE in 1992 in order to promote female education in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. The organization has proved over the past 17 years that the lives of African women can be drastically transformed if there is a strong, committed group articulating their concerns. FAWE reminds educational authorities, governments and other stakeholders of their responsibilities to work towards gender parity in the educational system. FAWE recognizes that education is a fundamental human right and is dedicated to working towards gender impartiality and equality in education across Africa. The organization is made up of 35 National Chapters across sub-Saharan Africa. This large network of chapters has enabled FAWE to create a large network of partners in education all across the continent. These partners allow FAWE to promote female education at all levels of society.
FAWE VISION: FAWE’s vision is that gender disparities in education will be significantly reduced and more girls will have access to schooling, complete their studies and perform well at all levels.
MISSION: FAWE’s mission is to work, together with its partners, to create positive societal attitudes, policies and practices that promote equity for girls in terms of access, retention, performance and education quality, through influencing the transformation of education systems in Africa.
GOAL: FAWE’s goal is to increase access and retention as well as improve the quality of education for all girls within the school system and for women in universities.
FAWE uses a four-level plan in order to transform female education and achieve gender impartiality and equality in education across Africa. The first level is Policy Advocacy – influencing the government and other partners to critically examine current educational policies and adopt strategies to achieve greater participation of girls in education. The second level is Community Advocacy – building public awareness (at a grass roots level) of the social and economic value of female education. This new awareness influences the way people think about female education, and causes them to work together to support a common agenda. The third level is Demonstrative Interventions – creating models to demonstrate that certain conditions can be created that are more conducive to girls’ enrollment, continuation and successful completion of the education system. The fourth, and last level is Replication and Mainstreaming – prompting governments to adopt and universalize innovative techniques that have been proven to have a positive impact on girls’ education.
There are many different programs that FAWE has pioneered and spread throughout Africa that have significantly improved the quality of education that females receive. One of these programs is the Bursary program FAWE offers. One of the largest obstructions to female education in Africa is poverty. If African families cannot afford to send all of their children to school then males become the priority. Bursaries from FAWE enable intelligent girls from poor families to receive an education. In 2007, approximately 46, 000 females from 27 countries were beneficiaries of FAWE bursaries. Another FAWE program that produces dramatic results is Tuseme (Let Us Speak Out). Many African cultures dictate that women should be seen and not heard, submissive and unquestioning. This makes participation in the classroom very difficult for females and can have a very detrimental effect on their performances on National Examinations. Tuseme encourages girls to empower themselves so they will voice their concerns. It also supports and assists them to overcome gender-based constraints. This program encourages girls to identify problems that affect them, work to understand these problems more thoroughly, articulate the problems and then take action to solve them. The Tuseme model has been adopted by the ministry of education in 14 countries and has been implemented in over 300 schools. Other influential FAWE programs include: SMT (Science, Math & Technology), HIV/AIDs program, Gender-Responsive Pedagogy and Centers of Excellence.
FAWE requires human, financial and material resources to continue their programs. These resources come from a variety of sources at the regional, national and global levels. National Chapters receive funding from membership donations, development partners, ministries of education and communities. In 2002 FAWE created an endowment fund in order to ensure the organizations long-term financial sustainability. The FAWE budget is currently unavailable due to reconstruction of their website.
As an organization FAWE has many strengths as well as a few weaknesses.
STRENGHTS: FAWE operates on a large scale, but it has many partners across sub-Saharan Africa. This allows for small grassroots movements to take place, for personal transformations to take place. Whenever one girl succeeds in the education system it can change the attitudes of a multitude of citizens and inspire countless others to pursue an education. FAWEs 4 step plan for education transformation is also a large asset to the organization because it affects change at different levels of society (influencing both personal narratives, micro narratives, and macro narratives).
WEAKNESS: FAWE relies on the generosity of others for the majority of their funding, which could present problems if this funding base was to disappear.
I think that FAWE is doing wonderful work in sub-Saharan Africa. They are providing women with the resources and skills to empower themselves. Gender equality brings with it benefits at all levels of society. When women are educated they are able to play a role in government and can influence the direction of society.
I am very excited to work closely with this organization this summer. I strongly believe that education is a universal human right, and through education a more peaceful, just and equal world can be realized.
No comments:
Post a Comment