The organization is based in Maryland.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: EduGirls, a Maryland-based nonprofit that aims to transform the lives of girls living in slums through education designed and delivered to meet their unique needs, is holding its annual fund raiser on June 7th in Vienna, Va.
The goal for this year’s campaign are to increase enrollment, introduce “smart class” technology in schools to improve quality of learning, and to initiate scholarships for those graduates who are ready for college.
For many families in poverty, it’s hard to see a realistic path to invest in girls’ futures, when there are so many challenges in the present. But For each year a girl stays in school, her income potential increases, according to EduGirls’ website.
She is more likely to avoid rushed or exploitative relationships, she is more likely to enter the formal workforce, have more control over childbirth, start a business, and be able to invest more in her own children’s future, according to a press release.
According to EduGirls, they are able to scale up delivery of educational services to girls living in poverty and meet the unique context of slum life for less than a dollar a day per child.
Vimukti Girls School, the first school supported by EduGirls, is the organization’s flagship project. To date, Vimukti has enrolled five hundred girls, coming from families that make less than $100-per-month with diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Students in the EduGirls program attend school for four hours a day, six days a week throughout the year. They are provided door-to-door transport, books, a nutritious meal, and medical support. Older girls are also provided with vocational training while they learn, which keeps them in school and arms them with skills they can use to bolster their family’s income.
At $200 per girl each year, the cost of supporting the girls runs about $0.67 per day, according to the EduGirls website. Costs are mitigated by sharing school infrastructure and by volunteer management.
Encouragingly, the first batch of girls accepted to Vimukti in 2004 completed their National Institution of Open Schools Board Exam in 2014 with a 100 percent pass rate.