
Girls Scholarship Program, Ghana
(2013)
In Northern Ghana over 40% of people live in extreme poverty. Only 20% are literate, as most people cannot afford to go to school beyond the primary level. At the high school level, fees jump from $10 to $250 a year and since families earn about $500 per year from subsistence farming, high school is an impossible dream — and even more unlikely for daughters. Moreover, girls are responsible for cooking, childcare, laundry, and fetching water, so even if they could afford school, most families would prefer to send their boys rather than lose a house laborer.
As a result, most rural communities in Northern Ghana have no female high school graduates, and thus no women to take on leadership roles in the community or political sphere. Thanks to Create Change’s Girls’ Education Program, girls are being supported at the high school and post-secondary levels. Traditional families are becoming more aware of a girl’s earning potential if she is educated. And so rather than keeping them home for domestic chores, families and communities are beginning to see the long term value in educating their daughters.
Photo courtesy of Warren Zelman Photography.
