After all our hard work on the year-end giving letter, Heidi and I just found out that we put the wrong address on the bottom of the letter. Somehow the "1" dropped off the 139 Madison, NE address for The Mountain Fund. Furthermore, we discovered that the post office in Albuquerque has repeatedly failed to actually get letters to The Mountain Fund because TMF moved a few times. Thus, we are asking all our potential donors to please go ahead and mail donations directly to:
Girls Education International
PO Box 853
Lyons, CO 80540
I've included the year-end letter below.
Dear valued donor,
Two years ago, while on a rock climbing expedition to the Karakoram Range of Pakistan, Lizzy Scully and I stayed in the remote village of Khane in the Hushe Valley. During our visit to the village’s two schools, we experienced a major aha moment that changed our lives. Shocked, we found feces on the grounds of the dilapidated two-room girls’ school, but a beautiful garden, four rooms, and white washed walls at the boys’ school. That evening we decided to find a way to support educational opportunities for women and girls in remote, mountainous regions of the world. Soon after, we founded Girls Education International.
Since our inception, we have successfully implemented a scholarship program for 47 girls in Liberia, provided school fees to two Nepalese girls, and established a relationship with a Pakistani NGO that will do a viability assessment for a school renovation project in Khane, spring 2009.
Our programs help girls like 18-year-old Gifty Yohn, who was just four years old in 1994 when she became one of a million refugees from Liberia’s brutal civil war. Gifty lost her father to cholera, her family home to looters and vandals, and any opportunity for an education. She and her six siblings live on less than $1 per day, which her mother earns selling fish at a stall in the local market. Gifty wants to become a nurse, but hasn’t been able to consistently pay her school fees. However, in August 2008, this promising student won a Girls Ed scholarship that will enable her to complete high school.
So why am I telling you this? Because Lizzy and I need help in order to expand and sustain our programs. Your generous donation will give us the means to do this. Think about it, for just $71 you can pay for a Liberian girl’s education for one year. Give your donation in someone else’s name as a holiday gift, and you will double your impact by raising awareness for Girls Ed and educating a girl. We know this is a tough time to ask for money, but educated girls are the world’s next great resource!
Sincerely,
Heidi Wirtz
Co-founder Girls Education International
www.girlsed.org
Please mail tax deductible donations:
The Mountain Fund*
c/o GEI
139 Madison, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
*GEI operates under the umbrella of TMF, a 501(c)3 organization.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Spend less on military, more on education and foster more jobs
I thought this was relevant to our message.
Susan Shaer: Military spending not best way to create new jobs
Susan Shaer — 9/03/2008 5:21 am
Good jobs are simply the backbone of what keeps a society running. They pay for houses, food, education, recreation, transportation and government. As jobs evaporate, the huge engine of our economy sputters and slows, so it's no wonder we are so protective of any project that creates or protects good jobs.
This atmosphere of protection wraps itself around the elements of the federal budget that create jobs, and affects our federal spending priorities more than most of us could possibly imagine.
The biggest sector of that economy is the military. It eats up over half of our federal discretionary budget pie, leaving crumbs for human and environmental needs. But changing those budget slices has proven nearly impossible over the years since President Dwight Eisenhower warned after World War II that the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience."
Almost every debate about cutting the military budget circles back to the issue of jobs. The military establishment is good at creating jobs, and at educating Congress about how those jobs are central to our economy. What this means is that every member of Congress who guards the jobs in a district ends up protecting the military projects that generate these jobs.
When Congress considers the prospect of cutting a military project -- e.g., a weapons system or a military base -- they have to consider how many jobs will be lost. Losing jobs means losing votes; defying the military means losing support.
How, then, can we begin to scale back the enormous military machine that our country has built since World War II? It's a daunting, yet hardly impossible task. In fact, it's almost simple; we can create jobs in other areas which have proven to provide more employment opportunities per dollar spent.
In late 2007, economists at the University of Massachusetts published a report that compares the number of jobs generated by investing $1 billion in different sectors. Here is what they found:
Investing $1 billion in the military creates 8,500 jobs.
Allocating $1 billion of tax revenue to tax cuts for personal consumption generates approximately 10,800 jobs.
Investing $1 billion generates either 12,800 construction for home weatherization and infrastructure jobs; 12,900 health care jobs; 17,700 education jobs; or 19,800 mass transit jobs.
The bottom line is that investing public dollars in areas other than the military (health care, education, mass transit or home weatherization) creates significantly more jobs than investing that same amount in the military. Investing in education and mass transit creates twice as many jobs as investing in the military.
So what's holding us back? A lot of people and corporations have hugely vested interests in keeping that money where it is.
The numbers say a lot. In 2007, 27 cents of each tax dollar went to the military. In that year alone, the defense sector spent $127,514,836 on lobbying activities. One corporation spent over $10 million. By contrast, a group that advocates for rational arms control and nuclear disarmament spent $80,000. In 2006, defense corporations spent $18 million in campaign contributions. A top defense contractor contributed over $2 million.
It's time to rethink how we spend our tax dollars. The truth is, when we invest federal funds in projects that are not military related, we generate substantially more jobs.
Susan Shaer is executive director of Women's Action for New Directions.
Susan Shaer: Military spending not best way to create new jobs
Susan Shaer — 9/03/2008 5:21 am
Good jobs are simply the backbone of what keeps a society running. They pay for houses, food, education, recreation, transportation and government. As jobs evaporate, the huge engine of our economy sputters and slows, so it's no wonder we are so protective of any project that creates or protects good jobs.
This atmosphere of protection wraps itself around the elements of the federal budget that create jobs, and affects our federal spending priorities more than most of us could possibly imagine.
The biggest sector of that economy is the military. It eats up over half of our federal discretionary budget pie, leaving crumbs for human and environmental needs. But changing those budget slices has proven nearly impossible over the years since President Dwight Eisenhower warned after World War II that the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience."
Almost every debate about cutting the military budget circles back to the issue of jobs. The military establishment is good at creating jobs, and at educating Congress about how those jobs are central to our economy. What this means is that every member of Congress who guards the jobs in a district ends up protecting the military projects that generate these jobs.
When Congress considers the prospect of cutting a military project -- e.g., a weapons system or a military base -- they have to consider how many jobs will be lost. Losing jobs means losing votes; defying the military means losing support.
How, then, can we begin to scale back the enormous military machine that our country has built since World War II? It's a daunting, yet hardly impossible task. In fact, it's almost simple; we can create jobs in other areas which have proven to provide more employment opportunities per dollar spent.
In late 2007, economists at the University of Massachusetts published a report that compares the number of jobs generated by investing $1 billion in different sectors. Here is what they found:
Investing $1 billion in the military creates 8,500 jobs.
Allocating $1 billion of tax revenue to tax cuts for personal consumption generates approximately 10,800 jobs.
Investing $1 billion generates either 12,800 construction for home weatherization and infrastructure jobs; 12,900 health care jobs; 17,700 education jobs; or 19,800 mass transit jobs.
The bottom line is that investing public dollars in areas other than the military (health care, education, mass transit or home weatherization) creates significantly more jobs than investing that same amount in the military. Investing in education and mass transit creates twice as many jobs as investing in the military.
So what's holding us back? A lot of people and corporations have hugely vested interests in keeping that money where it is.
The numbers say a lot. In 2007, 27 cents of each tax dollar went to the military. In that year alone, the defense sector spent $127,514,836 on lobbying activities. One corporation spent over $10 million. By contrast, a group that advocates for rational arms control and nuclear disarmament spent $80,000. In 2006, defense corporations spent $18 million in campaign contributions. A top defense contractor contributed over $2 million.
It's time to rethink how we spend our tax dollars. The truth is, when we invest federal funds in projects that are not military related, we generate substantially more jobs.
Susan Shaer is executive director of Women's Action for New Directions.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
KGNU Interview posted on www.GirlsEd.
You can now hear the KGNU interview with Lizzy Scully on our Web site: www.GirlsEd.org
Friday, December 12, 2008
Here is a grant I wrote
This is the latest version of the grant I wrote. It is modeled on the requirements outlined by the Ford Foundation. I still have some work to do on it. I am sending it off to Scott MacLennan at The Mountain Fund, who has generously offered to look at it.
GEI board member Elizabeth O'Neill gave me some very valuable feedback as well.
Girls Education International Liberia Scholarship Program Expansion Grant
"There is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health – including helping to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.” - Kofi Annan
Proposal Summary
Lizzy Scully and Heidi Wirtz founded Girls Education International (GEI) to work closely with communities in mountainous regions of the world to expand and support educational opportunities for women and girls. Our agency is requesting $55,000 from the Ford Foundation in order to expand and continue support of its Liberia Scholarship Program, which is currently being implemented in conjunction with the Liberian NGO, Common Ground Society. The existing program supports 47 girls in five private schools in Margibi and Bong counties by paying school fees. Our goal is to expand the scope of the project to provide 50 girls with school fees, a daily meal to ensure optimal development, and access to reproductive health education, so they can take control of their own health and lives. GEI will manage and disburse funds in a timely manner to CGS, which will then implement and monitor the program on the ground.
Narrative of Organization (five pages max)
"If we want to change the world – and we all do – there is one way to do that: educate girls." –World Food Program
Introduction to and Background of the organization
Girls Education International was founded in Boulder County, Colorado, November 2006, in order to address the educational discrepancies between boys and girls that exist in mountainous regions of developing countries. Heidi Wirtz and Lizzy Scully initially founded this organization because they felt a strong desire to give back to the mountainous communities they regularly visited on rock climbing expeditions and other exploratory adventures. Both women have worked tirelessly since their mid-20s to raise awareness for women’s issues through other non-profit and for-profit endeavors. They finally decided to organize their efforts in order to be more efficient and effective with their time and resources.
The mission of GEI is to work closely with communities in mountainous regions of the world to expand and support educational opportunities for women and girls. GEI promotes local ownership to ensure that programs respect local culture and values and are sustained over the long-term.
GEI chose this mission because its founders had strong personal ties to the mountainous regions of the world they have visited and where they have seen that women and girls have limited access to education. They also believe—and research illustrates—that providing girls with access to primary education is one of the best ways to advance the health and prosperity of both the girls and the communities and countries in which they reside.
An integral part of GEI’s work is partnering closely with local NGOs and following their leadership with regard to respecting cultural norms and adhering to national education standards and local operating practices. Through these partnerships, GEI also hope to strengthen their partners’ capabilities by providing them improved access to resources, contacts, and information.
History and major accomplishments:
Lizzy Scully, a journalist and senior contributing editor for Rock & Ice magazine, and Heidi Wirtz, a professional rock climber represented by The North Face, have spent a collective three decades climbing mountains and exploring remote regions of the world on both female-only and mixed expeditions. While on a rock climbing expedition to the Northern Areas of Pakistan, where the two women planned to climb a 2,700-foot, vertical rock wall, on the 19,000-foot Ogre’s Thumb Mountain, Scully had an accident. That accident, plus bad weather and dangerous rock conditions forced their descent after two days of climbing and after only arriving half way up the wall.
The two women then decided to spend their remaining ten days in the country exploring other valleys in the area, and ended up at the village of Khane in the Hushe Valley, where their expedition cook resided. While there, they explored nearby valleys for future rock climbing expeditions, but also had the chance to spend time with villagers and visit the local schools. Upon discovering the deplorable condition of the girls’ school, as compared to the boys’ school, Scully and Wirtz decided to raise funds to renovate the school and hire a qualified teacher. When they returned from Pakistan, the two women attempted to partner with already-existing organizations in order to raise funds for and implement the project, but they could not find any interested parties. Thus, they founded Girls Education International.
Because of the political turmoil in Pakistan in recent years and because they could not find a local partner to work with in the Hushe Valley, Scully and Wirtz were unable to start that project (though they still desire to do so). However, in the meantime, Emily Sherman-Davis, the Program Director for Common Ground Society in Liberia had personally contacted Scully, requesting assistance with a scholarship program she desired to start in two of the mountainous regions of Liberia—Margibi and Bong counties. Impressed with her personal story—she earned a master’s degree and started an NGO to promote peace and education, despite being a refugee from war-torn Liberia—Scully engaged in a dialogue with Sherman-Davis.
Scully and GEI’s Board of Directors then evaluated Sherman-Davis’ request and found CGS had already successfully implemented numerous health and peace education programs with clear and positive results. They had already successfully graduated 1,500 students (primarily girls), age seven to 26, from after-school, weekend and summer programs they operated in Bassa County until 2007 and then in Monrovia in 2008. CGS’ obvious commitment to help youth improve their lives through education, leadership training, social protection, and community development programs was in line with GEI’s goals. Thus, the GEI Board of Directors decided to expand the scope of their organization’s goals to include a project in Africa. That project was titled, the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program.
Current Programs and Activities
GEI began raising funds for the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program spring of 2008 and had sufficient funds to begin implementation by August 2008. The program pays the fees for 47 girls in five private Catholic schools in Margibi and Bong counties (Note. GEI is not a religiously affiliated organization. The Catholic schools were chosen because they provide a better education than the underfunded public schools). The scholarships were awarded to disadvantaged girls whose educational pursuits were not guaranteed because their families live in poverty, typically on less than $1 per day.
The program is being paid for by funds raised through various fundraising events organized by Scully and Wirtz and held on the Front Range of Colorado. GEI recently received the Inspiring Soles Grant of $5,000, which was awarded to Wirtz for her athletic prowess and her work raising funds and awareness for various nonprofits, and from which the Liberia Scholarship Program will be supported through spring 2010.
Description of work with local groups
GEI has received guidance for grant writing, fundraising, and strategic planning, as well as technical and accounting assistance from The Mountain Fund a 501(c)3 organization based out of New Mexico. We also currently operate under the umbrella of that organization.
Paid and volunteer staff
Currently there are no regularly paid staffers, though GEI has contracted a few jobs, such as grant writing and other fundraising activities. GEI plans to pay a monthly stipend to the program director (Scully) for the duration of the Liberia Scholarship Program should enough funding be procured through grants, donations, and fundraising efforts for that purpose.
Volunteers include:
Lizzy Scully:
Director of the Liberia Scholarship Program, Lizzy Scully has a master’s in communications. She has developed strategic planning, managerial, PR/marketing, and editing/writing skills as the managing editor for two publications. She has organized dozens of fundraisers, and headed the marketing campaign for the 2007 HERA Climb4Life event in Boulder, Colorado.
Heidi Wirtz:
GEI’s Executive Director, Heidi Wirtz, spearheads fundraising efforts and is the project manager for the Pakistan Education Project. A North Face athlete, Heidi has organized and led worldwide expeditions as well as dozens of fundraising events throughout the United States.
Elizabeth O’Neill:
A sustainable development and conservation planner with expertise in strategic planning and organizational development, and 15 years of experience in the field, Elizabeth O’Neill helps to guide the development of GEI.
Justin Voorhees:
Justin Voorhees has a bachelor's degree in finance from Susquehanna University and is GEI’s treasurer and accountant.
Funding Request
“We know that girls' education is perhaps the single most important investment a developing country can make." -USAID
Primary purpose and description/demographic of GEI’s constituency
The purpose of this request is to secure funds to expand the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program to include 50 girls in Margibi and Bong counties, and to offer those girls a stipend to pay for all school fees and to implement an after school reproductive health education program.
Three-quarters of females in Liberia are illiterate (compared to only 38 percent of boys) . Only 58 percent of girls are enrolled in primary school (compared to 74 percent of boys). Just 12 percent of girls are enrolled in secondary school (compared to 22 percent of boys) . And only 41 percent of females work . Currently 1.7 million Liberians live under the poverty line, with 1.3 million of those living in extreme poverty. Thus, one half of Liberians live in abject poverty. Poverty is even higher in rural areas as compared to urban areas – 67 percent versus 55 percent. These problems are exacerbated by extremely high unemployment rates. According to a CIA Factbook, Liberia’s unemployment rate is 85 percent .
The 47 girls who currently participate in the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program are from the most disadvantaged families in the country, including the poorest and the least educated. Some are even self-supported. They range in age from nine to 24, and are in elementary, middle, junior high and high schools in Kakata, the capital of Margibi County, and Gbarnga, the capital of Bong County.
Since the scholarship program was implemented, the program director at Common Ground Society has determined that the girls remain at serious risk for not receiving a quality education. Though paying school fees alleviates some financial burden, the cost of uniforms, schoolbooks, and ID cards is still a significant financial drain on the families. Some may be forced to drop out of the scholarship program despite successes they are experiencing because their families require they stay home to cook, wash, and help with the younger siblings. Plus, because their families are so poor, participants sometimes don’t get even one meal per day, which hinders their ability to concentrate in school and may affect their physical and cognitive development. In fact, 40 percent of children under five suffer from moderate to severe stunted growth due to lack of nutrition .
Finally, though they are receiving a quality education at privately run Catholic schools, without additional reproductive health education to empower them to understand and take control of their own health, girls are at risk for all of the problems outlined above, as well as early pregnancy, HIV, and STDs. According to a recent study, HIV rates in Liberia are between 10-20 percent . In addition, these dire circumstances have resulted in a Liberian females being continually trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair. The cost of educating 50 girls and providing them with these additional opportunities is difficult for small organizations such as GEI or CGS, but it is absolutely necessary. More funding is needed immediately.
Description of Community
Bong County profile: Bong County lies in the north-central part of Liberia. It has 12 districts, and a population of about 328,919, which makes it the third most populous county in Liberia. Its capital is Gbarnga, which is the location of Methodist Junior High and Saint Martin’s High School—the two schools participating in the GEI-CGS scholarship program. The main ethnic groups include the Kpelle, Mandingo, and Mano.
The county, once known as the food basket of Liberia, grows rice, cocoa, coffee, rubber and palms. Bong County also has a mining industry. It is home to Cuttington University College and the School of Nursing, run by Phebe Hospital. The county is also home to Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI) and Rural Development Institute (RDI).
Margibi County profile: Marbigi County lies on the north to central coast. It has four districts, and a population of 199,689. Its capital is Kakata, which is where Saint Christopher’s Catholic School, the Dekegar Community School, and the E.J. Yancy United Methodist School are located. These are the three schools participating in the GEI-CGS scholarship program. The main ethnic groups are Bassa and Kpelle, and 90 percent of the population is Christian, five percent is Muslim, and five percent is animist.
Margibi County is an important center of the country for education, housing the Booker Washington Institute and the Konola Academy. It is also one of the more disadvantaged counties in Liberia. According to United Nations Mission in Liberia Human Rights officers, Margibi County has the highest rate of rape in the country.
As well, the county is home to Firestone, the biggest rubber plantation in the world, as well as the Salala and Weala plantations. The county and its people are adversely affected by the existence of these plantations. Money generated by these plantations goes directly to the central government, and the county sees none of it; and the plantations don’t contribute significantly to the local job market as employees come from across Liberia. Plus, according to a 2005 government report, exploitation of workers at the Firestone plantation is rampant—most make just $2 per day but have to tap 600 trees per day; living conditions are deplorable; 60 percent of workers’ children go without schooling; and the plantation dumps its heavily polluted waste into the Farmington River, adversely affecting its aquatic life. As well, the Weala Rubber Co. dumps its waste in the Wea River.
Proposed Initiative
With this grant we plan to expand the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program to provide 50 girls in five schools in Margibi and Bong counties with scholarships, stipends for uniforms, books, ID cards, a daily meal plan, and a three-day per week after-school Reproductive Health Education Program.
Problem Statement/Statement of Need
Unequal access to schooling—which is discriminatory against girls—is an outstanding problem of Liberian society and responsible for the high rate of illiteracy among girls and women. Literacy rates are predicted to be even lower in Margibi and Bong counties in both adult and youth populations . In fact, literacy rates are significantly lower in rural regions, where young girls have fewer opportunities for education.
However, unequal access to schooling has far more dire consequences than simply illiteracy, including ensnaring women in a terrible cycle of poverty. Lack of education leads to early marriages—half of Liberian girls are forced to marry before age 18, and girls from poor families, such as the girls in the program, are twice as likely to marry young than girls from families that are better off. Child brides are more likely to contract STDs and watch their children die because they have little or no access to reproductive health services.
As well, child brides are more likely to be violated physically, sexually, or emotionally. More than three-quarters of Liberian women have been raped and one-quarter of women suffer from permanent disfigurement . Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during childbirth or pregnancy than older girls , and overall, an average of one out of every hundred women dies in childbirth. Additionally, forced sex leads to pregnancy and birth before the children’s bodies are ready. This leads to a plethora of health issues, including the prevalent problem of fistula, a debilitating condition caused by a tear in the vaginal tissue that results in chronic incontinence, which in turn leads to social ostracism and abandonment (nine out of 10 Liberian rape victims outside of marriage also suffer from fistula) .
The extremely difficult state of affairs for women in Liberia is exacerbated by:
• Low enrolment rates due to entrenched cultural and religious practices and values opposed to girls’ education, such as early marriage, domestic labor, and biases against girls education;
• High level of teenage pregnancies, leading to higher drop-out rates;
• Limited number of female teachers in the school system to serve as role models for girls;
• Violence against girls and women, e.g. sexual harassment by male peers and teachers against girls;
• Increased movement of poor girls into the sex industry; and
• Inadequate institutional support for the development and empowerment of girls and women.
Because of a serious lack of education and a subsequent inability to escape the cycle of poverty, the majority of women live on the margins of Liberian society, unable to participate effectively in national decision-making processes and to serve in high profile positions in government and industry, let alone find resources to deal with or seek recourse for all the tortures they have suffered.
Cleary we can’t solve these serious problems in just two years. However, funds provided to Girls Education International for its Liberia Scholarship Program can make a significant impact by empowering 50 girls (and their children, and their children’s children) to escape this cycle of poverty and violence. Plus, not only are we giving these girls their only chance for a better life, we are also empowering them to create a significant positive change in Liberian society. Change is possible as evidenced by the fact that Liberia elected Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the country’s first female president in 2006. However, Johnson-Sirleaf is not representative of the typical Liberian female as she grew up in one of Liberia’s few wealthy families.
For additional statistics on women and also on poverty rates in Liberia, please see Attachment 1a.
Program Design and Plan of Action
Current Program
Through GEI’s Liberia Scholarship Program, the total amount of $4,500 is disbursed to Program Director Emily Sherman-Davis of Common Ground Society each year to provide school fees for 47 girls in five private Catholic schools in Bong and Margibi counties. Sherman-Davis spends $750 on travel to the five schools twice per year, during which she determines the scholars, keeps track of their grades and progress through discussions with school administrators and the girls’ families, and photographs and otherwise documents each of the girls. Sherman-Davis manages a total of $1,500 per semester specifically for the girls, which she personally brings to the schools to pay for the school fees of the scholarship recipients. All receipts for school fees and for travel and administrative expenses are copied and emailed to GEI.
The girls chosen for scholarships must: regularly attend school, arrive to class on time, maintain a 70 percent or better average or better, and, when implemented, they attend the after-school program.
Goals of expanded program to be funded by grant:
The program will be expanded to include three additional girls, for a total of 50. These children will be provided with all their school fees. It will also be expanded to include fees for uniforms, PE T-shirts, ID cards, daily meals, text and copy books, as well as a reproductive health education program. The expanded program will include girls from the same five schools where the program currently operates.
After-school program:
The “Girls’ Club” Reproductive Health Education Program will be an after-school initiative that brings together young girls/women from different communities. All participants will be part of the Liberia Scholarship Program, and there will be one programs in each county, for a total of two.
Targeted population:
The Reproductive Health Club is mainly targeted at young girls/women. The program promotes the well being of adolescents, enhancing gender equality, as well as responsible sexual behavior. Its purpose is to protect young girls from early and unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS and sexual abuse, incest, and violence. The program provides girls a safe space to build support networks with other girls and women and promotes functional literacy, life skills, livelihoods skills, and reproductive health education.
Successes of similar programs in Liberia:
A similar program implemented by CGS has been well received by the communities of Bassa and Monrovia, and more than 200 girls have participated over the past three years. They achieved a 100 percent enrolment retention rate among participants; ten girls have graduated from high school and are attending university in Monrovia; one girl presently works as an office assistant with CGS; and there has been X uptake of family planning methods.
Curriculum:
The Curriculum will be based on two existing programs: Critical Issues—Sexual Reproductive Health developed and produced by Action for the Rights of Children ; and Sexual and reproductive health, rights and services by Women’s Commission for Refugee Women.
Students in the scholarship program will take leadership positions. As well, there will be one reproductive health educator for every 25 girls—normally a female health science teacher who already has a good reputation in the community—hired to teach the classes. Plus, successful women in business, health and government positions will be asked to do special presentations. For example, Gbarnga is home to a university as well as one of Liberia’s best teaching hospitals; both would be a source of qualified female speakers.
Location:
The after-school programs will be held in the capital cities of Gbarnga and Kakata three times per week. One scenario could be: classes held Monday and Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. In Gbarnga, the programs will be held on the Gbarnga Methodist high school campus; In Kakata, the program will be held at one of the schools where the scholarship program operates.
Misc:
The children will be served a daily meal. Meals will be made by five mothers (to represent the five schools), hired, trained, and administered by Common Ground Society. Each “cook” mother will purchase, prepare, and serve meals five days per week to the children from one school.
Goals and Objectives for Ford Foundation Grant
*Note: Girls Education International and Common Ground Society will jointly work on preparing the pre- and post-program surveys as well as evaluating the results. However, CGS will administer surveys, collect data, and monitor the girls in Liberia.
Goal 1: Enhance educational opportunities by expanding the scholarship program by three girls, and providing all participants with additional stipends for uniforms and school materials.
Outcome Objective 1a: Increased attendance and retention rates and subsequent better grades.
Impact Objective 1a: Participants will attain higher achievement levels and have changed attitudes toward the value and rewards of maintaining consistent attendance in school, as measured by follow-up tracking of grades and attendance and retention rates and pre- and post-program survey response comparisons.
Outcome Objective 1b: Increased pursuit of higher education or additional skills.
Impact Objective 1b: Participants will leave the program with a changed attitude about the values and rewards of the opportunities afforded by an education and more self confidence in their abilities to pursue higher education or additional skills, as demonstrated by follow-up tracking and interviews.
Outcome Objective 1c: Increased opportunities to find and secure gainful employment.
Impact Objective 1c: Participants will leave the program with changed attitudes toward the value and rewards of gainful employment and will find and secure employment as measured by pre- and post-program survey response comparisons and follow-up tracking.
Outcome Objective 1d: Increase in confidence levels and feelings of control over one’s life, and subsequent decrease in early marriage and pregnancy.
Impact Objective 1d: As demonstrated by pre- and post-program survey responses and follow-up tracking, participants will leave the program with: an increased ability to speak out against people who are violating their rights; a greater understanding of their options; an increased ability to take care of themselves; and a desire to pursue their hopes and dreams in lieu of early marriage and pregnancy.
Outcome Objective 1e: Decreased financial burden on families of participants.
Impact Objective 1e: Families of participants will be less likely to discriminate against girls’ education, will perceive their girl child as being a boon to the family, and will feel pride for their child’s accomplishments, as measured by pre- and post-survey response comparisons.
Outcome Objective 1f: Decreased financial burden of participating schools.
Impact Objective 1f: Teachers and administrators in participating schools will be able to provide all students with a better education and more continuity in the classroom (if children aren’t regularly dropping out), and they will feel less stress in their jobs, as measured by post-program staff surveys.
Goal 2: Enhance the health of scholarship recipients.
Outcome Objective 2: Provide daily nutritious meals to participants in the scholarship program in order to guarantee optimal cognitive and physical development.
Impact Objective 2a: Students will have an increased ability to concentrate in class because they will not feel hunger pains, they will get better grades, and they will see overall short- and long-term success, as measured by pre- and post-program survey response comparisons and follow-up tracking.
Goal 3: Enhance the ability of participants to make healthy choices by implementing a comprehensive after-school Reproductive Health Education Program for scholarship recipients.
Outcome Objective 3a: Increased attainment of life skills and an increased understanding of reproductive health.
Impact Objective 3a: Participants in this program will have a greater sense of ownership over their lives and their sexual health gleaned through a thorough education in the subject as well as an understanding of the resources available to them, such as counseling and health promotion services, as measured by pre- and post-program survey response comparisons.
Outcome Objective 3b: Healthier growth and development, and subsequent decreased vulnerability to sexually transmitted disease, HIV infection, early pregnancy, and entry into the sex trade.
Impact Objective 3b: Participants in this program will have lower rates of STD infection and early pregnancy, higher rates of better health and physical and cognitive development, and will be less likely to enter the sex trade, as measured by follow-up tracking.
Outcome Objective 3c: Elevated levels of self-esteem.
Impact Objective 3c: Participants will have positive, changed attitudes about their own abilities, and subsequently be a powerful force for positive change in Liberian society, as measured by pre- and post-program survey results and follow-up tracking.
Activities and Strategies
Objective 1a: Increased attendance and retention rates and subsequent better grades
Objective 1b-1c: Increased pursuit of higher education or additional skills; Increased opportunities to find and secure gainful employment.
Objective 1d: Increase in confidence levels and feelings of control over one’s life, and subsequent decrease in early marriage and pregnancy.
Objective 1e-1f: Decreased financial burden on families of participants; decreased financial burden of participating schools.
Objective 2a: Provide daily nutritious meals to participants in the scholarship program in order to guarantee optimal cognitive and physical development. The food will be purchased and prepared by mothers of the scholarship recipients in their homes.
Objective 3a and 3c: Increased attainment of life skills and an increased understanding of reproductive health; Elevated levels of self-esteem
Objective 3b: Healthier growth and development, and subsequent decreased vulnerability to sexually transmitted disease, HIV infection, early pregnancy, and entry into the sex trade.
Strategies to ensure success 1a-3b:
• GEI and CGS will ensure success of these objectives by proactive and consistent monitoring of the scholarship recipients and by providing consistent funding over the long term.
• GEI and CGS will ensure success of its program in the long term by fostering a sense of community ownership of the project and by building infrastructure through its scholarship program. (See section XX for more details.)
• GEI and CGS will ensure the success of CGS by providing a living wage stipend to CGS’ program director, Emily Sherman-Davis, to ensure she can afford to continue to administer the project and won’t suffer from burn out.
• GEI will ensure the success of GEI’s involvement by providing its program director with a monthly stipend to administer the program.
Timeline
See Excel Spreadsheet “Attachment 2a-Timeline of Activities”
Impact on problem and systematic change
Increasing and securing access to both a standard education and a reproductive health education program will benefit participants of the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program, their families, and their communities in various ways. It will increase participants’ access to schooling, improve retention rates, and lead to better grades, thereby alleviating the high illiteracy rates for those girls, their children, and their children’s children, thus encouraging a positive cycle of literacy and education.
This program will help counteract the discrimination against girls by giving legitimacy to their education, by alleviating the financial stresses on the families involved, and by giving the parents a sense of pride about their child’s accomplishments.
The reproductive and health education component will help alleviate early marriages and high youth pregnancy rates, thereby ensuring girls have better opportunities to secure jobs and escape poverty. It will also lead to an increase in adult women who can serve as role models for younger girls, especially if the program’s participants are encouraged to take leadership roles while in the program and then to return to the program upon graduation.
The communities of these participants will also benefit from an increased participation of educated citizens. Research illustrates that girls are more likely to participate in community affairs and politics and to know their legal rights when educated (see section on “Global project significance” below for more details). Increased involvement by participants will subsequently lead to an increased female perspective within local, regional, and national governments and businesses, and will facilitate an increase in institutional support for the development and empowerment of girls and women.
Plus, communities will benefit because GEI and CGS are directly investing resources into the communities and in the families of the scholarship recipients. GEI and CGS will: utilize community resources to provide for the girls—i.e. purchasing food and other items from local vendors to feed and clothe the girls; by hiring local women to teach the after-school reproductive health program; by hiring mothers whose children are involved in the scholarship program to procure and provide daily meals for the children; and by hiring mothers whose children are in the scholarship program to tailor the uniforms.
Finally, educating women increases their ability to speak out for their rights and the rights of women in Liberia. In the long-term, this could lead to decreased physical and sexual violence against women.
Global project significance
The long-term significance of this project lies in its potential to bolster the economic stability of the communities in which the scholarship recipient lives in Margibi and Bong Counties. It also has the potential of bolstering stability of war-torn Liberia and the entire Western African region.
Liberia could be like its close neighbor, Ghana, which, according to the Economist magazine, “is one of the few undisputed successes” of Africa in the last decade. Ghana, it continues, “has fostered an enviable reputation for individual freedom and political stability since democracy was restored in 1991.” Because of its stability, Ghana is: attractive to financial and diplomatic investment; a role model for other African countries; less vulnerable to corruption; and less likely to interfere with neighboring countries or start power struggles in neighboring countries. With the current progressive, female-minded government in place in Liberia, there’s no reason why it can’t become a beacon for other African countries.
So, how can educating 50 disadvantaged girls be a first step toward transforming Liberia into a beacon for other African countries?
First, girls who are educated have smaller families. As women’s schooling increases, the use of contraceptives increases and fertility falls. Educating girls “helps to delay age at marriage and increase age at first child birth, thereby reducing the fertility rate.” And, women with education have fewer children because they are empowered to “have the number of children that make sense from the point of view of economic development and improved education and economic opportunity…”
Smaller Liberian families mean less stress on local and regional resources, and an educated child becomes a positive resource for her community and her country.
Second, educated women with smaller families take their and their children’s health concerns more seriously. Female education "significantly improves household health and nutrition” and “lowers child morbidity and mortality rates.”
"Education is also associated with improved and timely access to information on good nutrition, good child-rearing practices, and earlier and more effective diagnosis of illnesses. As a result children born to educated mothers tend to be better nourished, fall sick less frequently, are healthier, and have a better growth rate than their uneducated counterparts.” Additionally, educated women have more awareness of problems such as HIV/AIDS.
Thus, healthier families mean less stress on Liberia’s already taxed health care system and fewer incidents of HIV/AIDS.
Third, numerous international studies have illustrated that literacy programs promote awareness of “the importance of children’s education.” In Nepal, for example, women who participated in integrated literacy programs were more aware of “political affairs, and the importance of children’s education.” Learned women spend more time educating their own children, and the more education a woman has, the more likely she will be to send both her female and male children to school.
More educated Liberian women translates to more Liberians educated in general.
Fourth, more education translates to more economic growth and agricultural productivity. "The relationship between formal basic education and long-term economic growth is well documented, with numerous studies reporting a strong correlation between the education of girls and a country’s level of economic development.” A recent report for the International Labour Organization stated that each additional year in school raised women’s earning by about 15 percent, compared with 11 percent for a man.
Gender and Food Security reported, "Increased education for women is not only a matter of justice, but would yield exceptional returns in terms of world food security. A World Bank study concluded that if women received the same amount of education as men, farm yields would rise by between seven and 22 percent. Increasing women’s primary schooling alone could increase agricultural output by 24 percent."
In a place like Margibi County, which has excellent soil and where every second household has access to agricultural land, an increase of seven to 22 percent would significantly impact the region. According to a Margibi County government report, “strong and sustained growth in agriculture is particularly important since it can create employment for many low-skilled people, is a major engine of rural and overall economy through its multiplier effects, and because productivity gains in agriculture provide the foundation for successfully shifting workers to manufacturing and services.” Furthermore, the study states, “experience in other post-conflict countries indicates that agricultural growth is a major factor in early economic recovery, reaching four percent two years after the end of the conflict and accelerating to an average of nearly eight percent in years 3-5 after the crisis, before settling down to about four percent in years 6-10, which is a more typical long-run growth rate for agriculture in most developing countries.
Additionally, increasing the agricultural output of Margibi and Bong counties could increase the overall food production in the country, meaning Liberia could spend less on imports. Currently, one-third of Liberians living in extreme poverty and the problem is only worsening with the global recession. Cities such as Monrovia (Liberia’s capital) import more than 90 percent of the rice they consume; and the average Liberian family consumes about one and a half bags of rice per month.
Thus, increased education for women in the agriculturally rich regions of Margibi and Bong counties could lead to significant, increased economic growth for the entire region and more food for the whole country.
Fifth and finally, well-informed and skilled women are more likely to stand up for themselves, understand their rights, participate in household decision-making, and to contribute to community or national politics. In 1997, the US Agency for International Development, working in Nepal, asserted that women who can read, write, and earn money "create more social change through organized and collective actions.”
Furthermore, "women who have learned to read and understand their legal rights are much more likely to initiate action for social change than those who are illiterate. In the Dhanusha district in the Terai, Nepal, women who completed literacy courses and had received ‘tin trunk libraries’ in their communities were keen to read women’s law books to know more about their rights in society.”
Increased numbers of educated women in Liberia would likely translate to a reduction in the incidence of trafficking girls to brothels or the likelihood that they will join the sex trade, a decrease in violence against women, an increase in awareness of domestic violence issues, and increased rights for women in general.
As illustrated by the success of women such as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was afforded an education and subsequently served at various levels in the government before becoming president and women like Common Ground Society’s program director, Emily Sherman-Davis, when given the opportunity and an education, Liberian women can make a huge impact regionally, nationally, and for all of Western Africa.
Key Personnel/staffing
Emily Sherman-Davis—Liberia Scholarship Program Director: $500 per month to implement, monitor, and evaluate the program, and to work regularly and directly with GEI. This monthly stipend will come directly from the Liberia Scholarship Program budget. The approximate time being spend managing the program will be 10 hours per week.
Lizzy Scully—Liberia Scholarship Program Project Manager: A to-be-determined monthly stipend to raise funds and find donors for the LSP in both the United States and Liberia, act as a liaison between GEI’s board and CGS, develop, expand, and evaluate the LSP program, and raise awareness of the program through marketing and public relations. The approximate time spent on the project will be an average of five-10 hours per week.
Two teachers for after-school scholarship program—to be hired upon implementation of the program and to be paid $100 per month, for a total of $2,400 per year.
Honorarium—Guest speakers to be hired upon implementation of program and to be paid a small stipend. Total of $400 per year.
Management plan/organizational structure/administration
Board of Directors of GEI— Heidi Wirtz (Chair), Lizzy Scully (Vice Chair), Elizabeth O’Neill (floating board member), and Justin Voorhees (treasurer and accountant)
Co-founder, Director of Fund Raising—Heidi Wirtz
Co-founder, Director of Marketing/Communications—Lizzy Scully
Assistant Director of Marketing/Communications—Jancy Quinn
LSP Program Director in Liberia—Emily Sherman-Davis
Floating volunteers
Sherman-Davis reports to Scully; Quinn and other volunteers report to Scully and Wirtz; Wirtz and Scully report to BOD; the budget and all money exchanged will be administered and monitored by Justin Voorhees, GEI’s treasurer and accountant.
Adequacy of resources
GEI was awarded the Croc’s/Outside Magazine Inspiring Soles Award grant totaling $5,000 December 2008, $4,500 of which is designated to fund the basic scholarship program through Spring 2010. GEI has an additional $3,500 raised from fundraising efforts.
See the current budget for existing scholarship program: Attachment 3a-Scholarship Student costs 2008-09.
See the complete proposed budget for the expanded LSP program: Attachment 4a-Expanded Program Budget, which includes extra sheets detailing: total cost of uniforms, books, and ID cards; total cost of after school program; total scholarship fees for 100 girls; projected overhead for GEI; and travel cost for project director in Liberia.
Equitable access/statement of diversity/nondiscriminatory policies for hiring new personnel
GEI provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.
GEI expressly prohibits any form of unlawful employee harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of GEI’s employees to perform their expected job duties is absolutely not tolerated
Performance Evaluation Plan
Criteria for success of project:
Our criteria for short-term success for the Liberia Scholarship Program is:
1. If participants maintain reasonable grades, attend class regularly, and graduate from high school.
2. If participants have elevated levels of self esteem upon completion of the program.
3. If participants maintain good health.
4. If schools are more stable due to regular payment of dues
Our criteria for long-term success for the LSP:
5. If participants seek gainful employment or higher education upon completion of high school.
6. If participants avoid early marriage and pregnancy
7. If participants maintain good reproductive health, including avoiding early pregnancy and STDs and utilizing birth control methods.
8. If participating children have elevated levels of self esteem upon completion of the program.
9. If participants begin to utilize their education to give back to the community by entering the public realm as politicians, leaders of groups to empower women.
How we will monitor the program:
CGS has and will continue to do rigorous screening of the girls to ensure the likelihood that they will follow the tenets of the scholarship program. Screening includes: assessing the needs of the girls by talking with them and their families; evaluating one-page essays that they write describing their desire to participate in the program; assessing the motivation of the girls by talking with their teachers and school principals; assessing their grades; and regularly monitoring their progress.
CGS will do follow-up tracking of the high school graduates of the program to measure their attainment of higher education or jobs and compare those numbers to non-participants. CGS will also administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to measure the change in their attitudes about higher education and securing gainful employment.
CGS will do follow-up tracking of the high school graduates of the program to measure the numbers of participants who married or got pregnant and compare that to non-participants. CGS will also administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to measure the change in their levels of confidence and feelings of control over their lives.
CGS will administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to the family members of participants as well as teachers and principals in participating schools to gauge improvements.
CGS will administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to the girls and to the mothers cooking the meals to find out how many children are eating the meals and finishing their plates, as well as to determine the high quality of the food, the timely serving of the food, whether the children like the food or not, and whether or not the restaurants are sanitary.
CGS will administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to gauge the level of skills received by the participants as well as their feelings of self-esteem.
CGS will do follow-up tracking of girls after they graduate from high school.
Measuring the success of the program:
The GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program is evaluated quantitatively by using baseline data. CGS and participating teachers and principals are responsible for collecting and comparing grades and attendance records at the end of each semester. Behavioral surveys are also conducted each semester by the same team. Summative reports for each scholarship student are prepared for funders and GEI board members.
Students, parents/caregivers, teachers, and principals are evaluated qualitatively by using pre- and post-program surveys by CGS. A summative report is prepared for review by all stakeholders.
The quality of the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program is examined quarterly by the project manager in the United States (Scully) using data reported and prepared by the program director in Liberia (Sherman-Davis).
A report on the program is prepared by the project manager in the United States (Scully) and presented to the GEI Board of Directors for review on a quarterly basis.
Strategy for success:
At the beginning of the first school year, a committee of stakeholders will be created to evaluate the scholarship program in Liberia. The committee will include: the program director for the scholarship program, the U.S. project manager for the scholarship program, one to two teachers or administrators from each school where the scholarships are being implemented, student leaders of the reproductive health education program, and four parents of students enrolled in the program. At the close of the school year, the committee of stakeholders will evaluate all information, and recommendations for improvement will be made.
At the point at which funds have been secured, a committee of evaluators will be created in the United States. The committee will include: GEI’s board of directors, the program director for the scholarship program, the U.S. project manager for the scholarship program, and four to five additional people, who are involved with or staff nonprofit organizations that focus on education. The project director in the United States (Scully) will compile all the above-mentioned data and present it to the committee of evaluators at the close of the first school year. At the close of the school year, the committee of evaluators will evaluate all information, and recommendations for improvement will be made.
Dissemination of information
The project director in the United States (Scully) will compile all information for dissemination. All board members, Common Ground Society employees, and grantors will receive a copy of the evaluation findings. They will also be posted for the public on the GEI blog, and highlights of the program will be sent to GEI members via the enews letter.
GEI board member Elizabeth O'Neill gave me some very valuable feedback as well.
Girls Education International Liberia Scholarship Program Expansion Grant
"There is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health – including helping to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.” - Kofi Annan
Proposal Summary
Lizzy Scully and Heidi Wirtz founded Girls Education International (GEI) to work closely with communities in mountainous regions of the world to expand and support educational opportunities for women and girls. Our agency is requesting $55,000 from the Ford Foundation in order to expand and continue support of its Liberia Scholarship Program, which is currently being implemented in conjunction with the Liberian NGO, Common Ground Society. The existing program supports 47 girls in five private schools in Margibi and Bong counties by paying school fees. Our goal is to expand the scope of the project to provide 50 girls with school fees, a daily meal to ensure optimal development, and access to reproductive health education, so they can take control of their own health and lives. GEI will manage and disburse funds in a timely manner to CGS, which will then implement and monitor the program on the ground.
Narrative of Organization (five pages max)
"If we want to change the world – and we all do – there is one way to do that: educate girls." –World Food Program
Introduction to and Background of the organization
Girls Education International was founded in Boulder County, Colorado, November 2006, in order to address the educational discrepancies between boys and girls that exist in mountainous regions of developing countries. Heidi Wirtz and Lizzy Scully initially founded this organization because they felt a strong desire to give back to the mountainous communities they regularly visited on rock climbing expeditions and other exploratory adventures. Both women have worked tirelessly since their mid-20s to raise awareness for women’s issues through other non-profit and for-profit endeavors. They finally decided to organize their efforts in order to be more efficient and effective with their time and resources.
The mission of GEI is to work closely with communities in mountainous regions of the world to expand and support educational opportunities for women and girls. GEI promotes local ownership to ensure that programs respect local culture and values and are sustained over the long-term.
GEI chose this mission because its founders had strong personal ties to the mountainous regions of the world they have visited and where they have seen that women and girls have limited access to education. They also believe—and research illustrates—that providing girls with access to primary education is one of the best ways to advance the health and prosperity of both the girls and the communities and countries in which they reside.
An integral part of GEI’s work is partnering closely with local NGOs and following their leadership with regard to respecting cultural norms and adhering to national education standards and local operating practices. Through these partnerships, GEI also hope to strengthen their partners’ capabilities by providing them improved access to resources, contacts, and information.
History and major accomplishments:
Lizzy Scully, a journalist and senior contributing editor for Rock & Ice magazine, and Heidi Wirtz, a professional rock climber represented by The North Face, have spent a collective three decades climbing mountains and exploring remote regions of the world on both female-only and mixed expeditions. While on a rock climbing expedition to the Northern Areas of Pakistan, where the two women planned to climb a 2,700-foot, vertical rock wall, on the 19,000-foot Ogre’s Thumb Mountain, Scully had an accident. That accident, plus bad weather and dangerous rock conditions forced their descent after two days of climbing and after only arriving half way up the wall.
The two women then decided to spend their remaining ten days in the country exploring other valleys in the area, and ended up at the village of Khane in the Hushe Valley, where their expedition cook resided. While there, they explored nearby valleys for future rock climbing expeditions, but also had the chance to spend time with villagers and visit the local schools. Upon discovering the deplorable condition of the girls’ school, as compared to the boys’ school, Scully and Wirtz decided to raise funds to renovate the school and hire a qualified teacher. When they returned from Pakistan, the two women attempted to partner with already-existing organizations in order to raise funds for and implement the project, but they could not find any interested parties. Thus, they founded Girls Education International.
Because of the political turmoil in Pakistan in recent years and because they could not find a local partner to work with in the Hushe Valley, Scully and Wirtz were unable to start that project (though they still desire to do so). However, in the meantime, Emily Sherman-Davis, the Program Director for Common Ground Society in Liberia had personally contacted Scully, requesting assistance with a scholarship program she desired to start in two of the mountainous regions of Liberia—Margibi and Bong counties. Impressed with her personal story—she earned a master’s degree and started an NGO to promote peace and education, despite being a refugee from war-torn Liberia—Scully engaged in a dialogue with Sherman-Davis.
Scully and GEI’s Board of Directors then evaluated Sherman-Davis’ request and found CGS had already successfully implemented numerous health and peace education programs with clear and positive results. They had already successfully graduated 1,500 students (primarily girls), age seven to 26, from after-school, weekend and summer programs they operated in Bassa County until 2007 and then in Monrovia in 2008. CGS’ obvious commitment to help youth improve their lives through education, leadership training, social protection, and community development programs was in line with GEI’s goals. Thus, the GEI Board of Directors decided to expand the scope of their organization’s goals to include a project in Africa. That project was titled, the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program.
Current Programs and Activities
GEI began raising funds for the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program spring of 2008 and had sufficient funds to begin implementation by August 2008. The program pays the fees for 47 girls in five private Catholic schools in Margibi and Bong counties (Note. GEI is not a religiously affiliated organization. The Catholic schools were chosen because they provide a better education than the underfunded public schools). The scholarships were awarded to disadvantaged girls whose educational pursuits were not guaranteed because their families live in poverty, typically on less than $1 per day.
The program is being paid for by funds raised through various fundraising events organized by Scully and Wirtz and held on the Front Range of Colorado. GEI recently received the Inspiring Soles Grant of $5,000, which was awarded to Wirtz for her athletic prowess and her work raising funds and awareness for various nonprofits, and from which the Liberia Scholarship Program will be supported through spring 2010.
Description of work with local groups
GEI has received guidance for grant writing, fundraising, and strategic planning, as well as technical and accounting assistance from The Mountain Fund a 501(c)3 organization based out of New Mexico. We also currently operate under the umbrella of that organization.
Paid and volunteer staff
Currently there are no regularly paid staffers, though GEI has contracted a few jobs, such as grant writing and other fundraising activities. GEI plans to pay a monthly stipend to the program director (Scully) for the duration of the Liberia Scholarship Program should enough funding be procured through grants, donations, and fundraising efforts for that purpose.
Volunteers include:
Lizzy Scully:
Director of the Liberia Scholarship Program, Lizzy Scully has a master’s in communications. She has developed strategic planning, managerial, PR/marketing, and editing/writing skills as the managing editor for two publications. She has organized dozens of fundraisers, and headed the marketing campaign for the 2007 HERA Climb4Life event in Boulder, Colorado.
Heidi Wirtz:
GEI’s Executive Director, Heidi Wirtz, spearheads fundraising efforts and is the project manager for the Pakistan Education Project. A North Face athlete, Heidi has organized and led worldwide expeditions as well as dozens of fundraising events throughout the United States.
Elizabeth O’Neill:
A sustainable development and conservation planner with expertise in strategic planning and organizational development, and 15 years of experience in the field, Elizabeth O’Neill helps to guide the development of GEI.
Justin Voorhees:
Justin Voorhees has a bachelor's degree in finance from Susquehanna University and is GEI’s treasurer and accountant.
Funding Request
“We know that girls' education is perhaps the single most important investment a developing country can make." -USAID
Primary purpose and description/demographic of GEI’s constituency
The purpose of this request is to secure funds to expand the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program to include 50 girls in Margibi and Bong counties, and to offer those girls a stipend to pay for all school fees and to implement an after school reproductive health education program.
Three-quarters of females in Liberia are illiterate (compared to only 38 percent of boys) . Only 58 percent of girls are enrolled in primary school (compared to 74 percent of boys). Just 12 percent of girls are enrolled in secondary school (compared to 22 percent of boys) . And only 41 percent of females work . Currently 1.7 million Liberians live under the poverty line, with 1.3 million of those living in extreme poverty. Thus, one half of Liberians live in abject poverty. Poverty is even higher in rural areas as compared to urban areas – 67 percent versus 55 percent. These problems are exacerbated by extremely high unemployment rates. According to a CIA Factbook, Liberia’s unemployment rate is 85 percent .
The 47 girls who currently participate in the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program are from the most disadvantaged families in the country, including the poorest and the least educated. Some are even self-supported. They range in age from nine to 24, and are in elementary, middle, junior high and high schools in Kakata, the capital of Margibi County, and Gbarnga, the capital of Bong County.
Since the scholarship program was implemented, the program director at Common Ground Society has determined that the girls remain at serious risk for not receiving a quality education. Though paying school fees alleviates some financial burden, the cost of uniforms, schoolbooks, and ID cards is still a significant financial drain on the families. Some may be forced to drop out of the scholarship program despite successes they are experiencing because their families require they stay home to cook, wash, and help with the younger siblings. Plus, because their families are so poor, participants sometimes don’t get even one meal per day, which hinders their ability to concentrate in school and may affect their physical and cognitive development. In fact, 40 percent of children under five suffer from moderate to severe stunted growth due to lack of nutrition .
Finally, though they are receiving a quality education at privately run Catholic schools, without additional reproductive health education to empower them to understand and take control of their own health, girls are at risk for all of the problems outlined above, as well as early pregnancy, HIV, and STDs. According to a recent study, HIV rates in Liberia are between 10-20 percent . In addition, these dire circumstances have resulted in a Liberian females being continually trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair. The cost of educating 50 girls and providing them with these additional opportunities is difficult for small organizations such as GEI or CGS, but it is absolutely necessary. More funding is needed immediately.
Description of Community
Bong County profile: Bong County lies in the north-central part of Liberia. It has 12 districts, and a population of about 328,919, which makes it the third most populous county in Liberia. Its capital is Gbarnga, which is the location of Methodist Junior High and Saint Martin’s High School—the two schools participating in the GEI-CGS scholarship program. The main ethnic groups include the Kpelle, Mandingo, and Mano.
The county, once known as the food basket of Liberia, grows rice, cocoa, coffee, rubber and palms. Bong County also has a mining industry. It is home to Cuttington University College and the School of Nursing, run by Phebe Hospital. The county is also home to Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI) and Rural Development Institute (RDI).
Margibi County profile: Marbigi County lies on the north to central coast. It has four districts, and a population of 199,689. Its capital is Kakata, which is where Saint Christopher’s Catholic School, the Dekegar Community School, and the E.J. Yancy United Methodist School are located. These are the three schools participating in the GEI-CGS scholarship program. The main ethnic groups are Bassa and Kpelle, and 90 percent of the population is Christian, five percent is Muslim, and five percent is animist.
Margibi County is an important center of the country for education, housing the Booker Washington Institute and the Konola Academy. It is also one of the more disadvantaged counties in Liberia. According to United Nations Mission in Liberia Human Rights officers, Margibi County has the highest rate of rape in the country.
As well, the county is home to Firestone, the biggest rubber plantation in the world, as well as the Salala and Weala plantations. The county and its people are adversely affected by the existence of these plantations. Money generated by these plantations goes directly to the central government, and the county sees none of it; and the plantations don’t contribute significantly to the local job market as employees come from across Liberia. Plus, according to a 2005 government report, exploitation of workers at the Firestone plantation is rampant—most make just $2 per day but have to tap 600 trees per day; living conditions are deplorable; 60 percent of workers’ children go without schooling; and the plantation dumps its heavily polluted waste into the Farmington River, adversely affecting its aquatic life. As well, the Weala Rubber Co. dumps its waste in the Wea River.
Proposed Initiative
With this grant we plan to expand the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program to provide 50 girls in five schools in Margibi and Bong counties with scholarships, stipends for uniforms, books, ID cards, a daily meal plan, and a three-day per week after-school Reproductive Health Education Program.
Problem Statement/Statement of Need
Unequal access to schooling—which is discriminatory against girls—is an outstanding problem of Liberian society and responsible for the high rate of illiteracy among girls and women. Literacy rates are predicted to be even lower in Margibi and Bong counties in both adult and youth populations . In fact, literacy rates are significantly lower in rural regions, where young girls have fewer opportunities for education.
However, unequal access to schooling has far more dire consequences than simply illiteracy, including ensnaring women in a terrible cycle of poverty. Lack of education leads to early marriages—half of Liberian girls are forced to marry before age 18, and girls from poor families, such as the girls in the program, are twice as likely to marry young than girls from families that are better off. Child brides are more likely to contract STDs and watch their children die because they have little or no access to reproductive health services.
As well, child brides are more likely to be violated physically, sexually, or emotionally. More than three-quarters of Liberian women have been raped and one-quarter of women suffer from permanent disfigurement . Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during childbirth or pregnancy than older girls , and overall, an average of one out of every hundred women dies in childbirth. Additionally, forced sex leads to pregnancy and birth before the children’s bodies are ready. This leads to a plethora of health issues, including the prevalent problem of fistula, a debilitating condition caused by a tear in the vaginal tissue that results in chronic incontinence, which in turn leads to social ostracism and abandonment (nine out of 10 Liberian rape victims outside of marriage also suffer from fistula) .
The extremely difficult state of affairs for women in Liberia is exacerbated by:
• Low enrolment rates due to entrenched cultural and religious practices and values opposed to girls’ education, such as early marriage, domestic labor, and biases against girls education;
• High level of teenage pregnancies, leading to higher drop-out rates;
• Limited number of female teachers in the school system to serve as role models for girls;
• Violence against girls and women, e.g. sexual harassment by male peers and teachers against girls;
• Increased movement of poor girls into the sex industry; and
• Inadequate institutional support for the development and empowerment of girls and women.
Because of a serious lack of education and a subsequent inability to escape the cycle of poverty, the majority of women live on the margins of Liberian society, unable to participate effectively in national decision-making processes and to serve in high profile positions in government and industry, let alone find resources to deal with or seek recourse for all the tortures they have suffered.
Cleary we can’t solve these serious problems in just two years. However, funds provided to Girls Education International for its Liberia Scholarship Program can make a significant impact by empowering 50 girls (and their children, and their children’s children) to escape this cycle of poverty and violence. Plus, not only are we giving these girls their only chance for a better life, we are also empowering them to create a significant positive change in Liberian society. Change is possible as evidenced by the fact that Liberia elected Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the country’s first female president in 2006. However, Johnson-Sirleaf is not representative of the typical Liberian female as she grew up in one of Liberia’s few wealthy families.
For additional statistics on women and also on poverty rates in Liberia, please see Attachment 1a.
Program Design and Plan of Action
Current Program
Through GEI’s Liberia Scholarship Program, the total amount of $4,500 is disbursed to Program Director Emily Sherman-Davis of Common Ground Society each year to provide school fees for 47 girls in five private Catholic schools in Bong and Margibi counties. Sherman-Davis spends $750 on travel to the five schools twice per year, during which she determines the scholars, keeps track of their grades and progress through discussions with school administrators and the girls’ families, and photographs and otherwise documents each of the girls. Sherman-Davis manages a total of $1,500 per semester specifically for the girls, which she personally brings to the schools to pay for the school fees of the scholarship recipients. All receipts for school fees and for travel and administrative expenses are copied and emailed to GEI.
The girls chosen for scholarships must: regularly attend school, arrive to class on time, maintain a 70 percent or better average or better, and, when implemented, they attend the after-school program.
Goals of expanded program to be funded by grant:
The program will be expanded to include three additional girls, for a total of 50. These children will be provided with all their school fees. It will also be expanded to include fees for uniforms, PE T-shirts, ID cards, daily meals, text and copy books, as well as a reproductive health education program. The expanded program will include girls from the same five schools where the program currently operates.
After-school program:
The “Girls’ Club” Reproductive Health Education Program will be an after-school initiative that brings together young girls/women from different communities. All participants will be part of the Liberia Scholarship Program, and there will be one programs in each county, for a total of two.
Targeted population:
The Reproductive Health Club is mainly targeted at young girls/women. The program promotes the well being of adolescents, enhancing gender equality, as well as responsible sexual behavior. Its purpose is to protect young girls from early and unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS and sexual abuse, incest, and violence. The program provides girls a safe space to build support networks with other girls and women and promotes functional literacy, life skills, livelihoods skills, and reproductive health education.
Successes of similar programs in Liberia:
A similar program implemented by CGS has been well received by the communities of Bassa and Monrovia, and more than 200 girls have participated over the past three years. They achieved a 100 percent enrolment retention rate among participants; ten girls have graduated from high school and are attending university in Monrovia; one girl presently works as an office assistant with CGS; and there has been X uptake of family planning methods.
Curriculum:
The Curriculum will be based on two existing programs: Critical Issues—Sexual Reproductive Health developed and produced by Action for the Rights of Children ; and Sexual and reproductive health, rights and services by Women’s Commission for Refugee Women.
Students in the scholarship program will take leadership positions. As well, there will be one reproductive health educator for every 25 girls—normally a female health science teacher who already has a good reputation in the community—hired to teach the classes. Plus, successful women in business, health and government positions will be asked to do special presentations. For example, Gbarnga is home to a university as well as one of Liberia’s best teaching hospitals; both would be a source of qualified female speakers.
Location:
The after-school programs will be held in the capital cities of Gbarnga and Kakata three times per week. One scenario could be: classes held Monday and Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. In Gbarnga, the programs will be held on the Gbarnga Methodist high school campus; In Kakata, the program will be held at one of the schools where the scholarship program operates.
Misc:
The children will be served a daily meal. Meals will be made by five mothers (to represent the five schools), hired, trained, and administered by Common Ground Society. Each “cook” mother will purchase, prepare, and serve meals five days per week to the children from one school.
Goals and Objectives for Ford Foundation Grant
*Note: Girls Education International and Common Ground Society will jointly work on preparing the pre- and post-program surveys as well as evaluating the results. However, CGS will administer surveys, collect data, and monitor the girls in Liberia.
Goal 1: Enhance educational opportunities by expanding the scholarship program by three girls, and providing all participants with additional stipends for uniforms and school materials.
Outcome Objective 1a: Increased attendance and retention rates and subsequent better grades.
Impact Objective 1a: Participants will attain higher achievement levels and have changed attitudes toward the value and rewards of maintaining consistent attendance in school, as measured by follow-up tracking of grades and attendance and retention rates and pre- and post-program survey response comparisons.
Outcome Objective 1b: Increased pursuit of higher education or additional skills.
Impact Objective 1b: Participants will leave the program with a changed attitude about the values and rewards of the opportunities afforded by an education and more self confidence in their abilities to pursue higher education or additional skills, as demonstrated by follow-up tracking and interviews.
Outcome Objective 1c: Increased opportunities to find and secure gainful employment.
Impact Objective 1c: Participants will leave the program with changed attitudes toward the value and rewards of gainful employment and will find and secure employment as measured by pre- and post-program survey response comparisons and follow-up tracking.
Outcome Objective 1d: Increase in confidence levels and feelings of control over one’s life, and subsequent decrease in early marriage and pregnancy.
Impact Objective 1d: As demonstrated by pre- and post-program survey responses and follow-up tracking, participants will leave the program with: an increased ability to speak out against people who are violating their rights; a greater understanding of their options; an increased ability to take care of themselves; and a desire to pursue their hopes and dreams in lieu of early marriage and pregnancy.
Outcome Objective 1e: Decreased financial burden on families of participants.
Impact Objective 1e: Families of participants will be less likely to discriminate against girls’ education, will perceive their girl child as being a boon to the family, and will feel pride for their child’s accomplishments, as measured by pre- and post-survey response comparisons.
Outcome Objective 1f: Decreased financial burden of participating schools.
Impact Objective 1f: Teachers and administrators in participating schools will be able to provide all students with a better education and more continuity in the classroom (if children aren’t regularly dropping out), and they will feel less stress in their jobs, as measured by post-program staff surveys.
Goal 2: Enhance the health of scholarship recipients.
Outcome Objective 2: Provide daily nutritious meals to participants in the scholarship program in order to guarantee optimal cognitive and physical development.
Impact Objective 2a: Students will have an increased ability to concentrate in class because they will not feel hunger pains, they will get better grades, and they will see overall short- and long-term success, as measured by pre- and post-program survey response comparisons and follow-up tracking.
Goal 3: Enhance the ability of participants to make healthy choices by implementing a comprehensive after-school Reproductive Health Education Program for scholarship recipients.
Outcome Objective 3a: Increased attainment of life skills and an increased understanding of reproductive health.
Impact Objective 3a: Participants in this program will have a greater sense of ownership over their lives and their sexual health gleaned through a thorough education in the subject as well as an understanding of the resources available to them, such as counseling and health promotion services, as measured by pre- and post-program survey response comparisons.
Outcome Objective 3b: Healthier growth and development, and subsequent decreased vulnerability to sexually transmitted disease, HIV infection, early pregnancy, and entry into the sex trade.
Impact Objective 3b: Participants in this program will have lower rates of STD infection and early pregnancy, higher rates of better health and physical and cognitive development, and will be less likely to enter the sex trade, as measured by follow-up tracking.
Outcome Objective 3c: Elevated levels of self-esteem.
Impact Objective 3c: Participants will have positive, changed attitudes about their own abilities, and subsequently be a powerful force for positive change in Liberian society, as measured by pre- and post-program survey results and follow-up tracking.
Activities and Strategies
Objective 1a: Increased attendance and retention rates and subsequent better grades
Objective 1b-1c: Increased pursuit of higher education or additional skills; Increased opportunities to find and secure gainful employment.
Objective 1d: Increase in confidence levels and feelings of control over one’s life, and subsequent decrease in early marriage and pregnancy.
Objective 1e-1f: Decreased financial burden on families of participants; decreased financial burden of participating schools.
Objective 2a: Provide daily nutritious meals to participants in the scholarship program in order to guarantee optimal cognitive and physical development. The food will be purchased and prepared by mothers of the scholarship recipients in their homes.
Objective 3a and 3c: Increased attainment of life skills and an increased understanding of reproductive health; Elevated levels of self-esteem
Objective 3b: Healthier growth and development, and subsequent decreased vulnerability to sexually transmitted disease, HIV infection, early pregnancy, and entry into the sex trade.
Strategies to ensure success 1a-3b:
• GEI and CGS will ensure success of these objectives by proactive and consistent monitoring of the scholarship recipients and by providing consistent funding over the long term.
• GEI and CGS will ensure success of its program in the long term by fostering a sense of community ownership of the project and by building infrastructure through its scholarship program. (See section XX for more details.)
• GEI and CGS will ensure the success of CGS by providing a living wage stipend to CGS’ program director, Emily Sherman-Davis, to ensure she can afford to continue to administer the project and won’t suffer from burn out.
• GEI will ensure the success of GEI’s involvement by providing its program director with a monthly stipend to administer the program.
Timeline
See Excel Spreadsheet “Attachment 2a-Timeline of Activities”
Impact on problem and systematic change
Increasing and securing access to both a standard education and a reproductive health education program will benefit participants of the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program, their families, and their communities in various ways. It will increase participants’ access to schooling, improve retention rates, and lead to better grades, thereby alleviating the high illiteracy rates for those girls, their children, and their children’s children, thus encouraging a positive cycle of literacy and education.
This program will help counteract the discrimination against girls by giving legitimacy to their education, by alleviating the financial stresses on the families involved, and by giving the parents a sense of pride about their child’s accomplishments.
The reproductive and health education component will help alleviate early marriages and high youth pregnancy rates, thereby ensuring girls have better opportunities to secure jobs and escape poverty. It will also lead to an increase in adult women who can serve as role models for younger girls, especially if the program’s participants are encouraged to take leadership roles while in the program and then to return to the program upon graduation.
The communities of these participants will also benefit from an increased participation of educated citizens. Research illustrates that girls are more likely to participate in community affairs and politics and to know their legal rights when educated (see section on “Global project significance” below for more details). Increased involvement by participants will subsequently lead to an increased female perspective within local, regional, and national governments and businesses, and will facilitate an increase in institutional support for the development and empowerment of girls and women.
Plus, communities will benefit because GEI and CGS are directly investing resources into the communities and in the families of the scholarship recipients. GEI and CGS will: utilize community resources to provide for the girls—i.e. purchasing food and other items from local vendors to feed and clothe the girls; by hiring local women to teach the after-school reproductive health program; by hiring mothers whose children are involved in the scholarship program to procure and provide daily meals for the children; and by hiring mothers whose children are in the scholarship program to tailor the uniforms.
Finally, educating women increases their ability to speak out for their rights and the rights of women in Liberia. In the long-term, this could lead to decreased physical and sexual violence against women.
Global project significance
The long-term significance of this project lies in its potential to bolster the economic stability of the communities in which the scholarship recipient lives in Margibi and Bong Counties. It also has the potential of bolstering stability of war-torn Liberia and the entire Western African region.
Liberia could be like its close neighbor, Ghana, which, according to the Economist magazine, “is one of the few undisputed successes” of Africa in the last decade. Ghana, it continues, “has fostered an enviable reputation for individual freedom and political stability since democracy was restored in 1991.” Because of its stability, Ghana is: attractive to financial and diplomatic investment; a role model for other African countries; less vulnerable to corruption; and less likely to interfere with neighboring countries or start power struggles in neighboring countries. With the current progressive, female-minded government in place in Liberia, there’s no reason why it can’t become a beacon for other African countries.
So, how can educating 50 disadvantaged girls be a first step toward transforming Liberia into a beacon for other African countries?
First, girls who are educated have smaller families. As women’s schooling increases, the use of contraceptives increases and fertility falls. Educating girls “helps to delay age at marriage and increase age at first child birth, thereby reducing the fertility rate.” And, women with education have fewer children because they are empowered to “have the number of children that make sense from the point of view of economic development and improved education and economic opportunity…”
Smaller Liberian families mean less stress on local and regional resources, and an educated child becomes a positive resource for her community and her country.
Second, educated women with smaller families take their and their children’s health concerns more seriously. Female education "significantly improves household health and nutrition” and “lowers child morbidity and mortality rates.”
"Education is also associated with improved and timely access to information on good nutrition, good child-rearing practices, and earlier and more effective diagnosis of illnesses. As a result children born to educated mothers tend to be better nourished, fall sick less frequently, are healthier, and have a better growth rate than their uneducated counterparts.” Additionally, educated women have more awareness of problems such as HIV/AIDS.
Thus, healthier families mean less stress on Liberia’s already taxed health care system and fewer incidents of HIV/AIDS.
Third, numerous international studies have illustrated that literacy programs promote awareness of “the importance of children’s education.” In Nepal, for example, women who participated in integrated literacy programs were more aware of “political affairs, and the importance of children’s education.” Learned women spend more time educating their own children, and the more education a woman has, the more likely she will be to send both her female and male children to school.
More educated Liberian women translates to more Liberians educated in general.
Fourth, more education translates to more economic growth and agricultural productivity. "The relationship between formal basic education and long-term economic growth is well documented, with numerous studies reporting a strong correlation between the education of girls and a country’s level of economic development.” A recent report for the International Labour Organization stated that each additional year in school raised women’s earning by about 15 percent, compared with 11 percent for a man.
Gender and Food Security reported, "Increased education for women is not only a matter of justice, but would yield exceptional returns in terms of world food security. A World Bank study concluded that if women received the same amount of education as men, farm yields would rise by between seven and 22 percent. Increasing women’s primary schooling alone could increase agricultural output by 24 percent."
In a place like Margibi County, which has excellent soil and where every second household has access to agricultural land, an increase of seven to 22 percent would significantly impact the region. According to a Margibi County government report, “strong and sustained growth in agriculture is particularly important since it can create employment for many low-skilled people, is a major engine of rural and overall economy through its multiplier effects, and because productivity gains in agriculture provide the foundation for successfully shifting workers to manufacturing and services.” Furthermore, the study states, “experience in other post-conflict countries indicates that agricultural growth is a major factor in early economic recovery, reaching four percent two years after the end of the conflict and accelerating to an average of nearly eight percent in years 3-5 after the crisis, before settling down to about four percent in years 6-10, which is a more typical long-run growth rate for agriculture in most developing countries.
Additionally, increasing the agricultural output of Margibi and Bong counties could increase the overall food production in the country, meaning Liberia could spend less on imports. Currently, one-third of Liberians living in extreme poverty and the problem is only worsening with the global recession. Cities such as Monrovia (Liberia’s capital) import more than 90 percent of the rice they consume; and the average Liberian family consumes about one and a half bags of rice per month.
Thus, increased education for women in the agriculturally rich regions of Margibi and Bong counties could lead to significant, increased economic growth for the entire region and more food for the whole country.
Fifth and finally, well-informed and skilled women are more likely to stand up for themselves, understand their rights, participate in household decision-making, and to contribute to community or national politics. In 1997, the US Agency for International Development, working in Nepal, asserted that women who can read, write, and earn money "create more social change through organized and collective actions.”
Furthermore, "women who have learned to read and understand their legal rights are much more likely to initiate action for social change than those who are illiterate. In the Dhanusha district in the Terai, Nepal, women who completed literacy courses and had received ‘tin trunk libraries’ in their communities were keen to read women’s law books to know more about their rights in society.”
Increased numbers of educated women in Liberia would likely translate to a reduction in the incidence of trafficking girls to brothels or the likelihood that they will join the sex trade, a decrease in violence against women, an increase in awareness of domestic violence issues, and increased rights for women in general.
As illustrated by the success of women such as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was afforded an education and subsequently served at various levels in the government before becoming president and women like Common Ground Society’s program director, Emily Sherman-Davis, when given the opportunity and an education, Liberian women can make a huge impact regionally, nationally, and for all of Western Africa.
Key Personnel/staffing
Emily Sherman-Davis—Liberia Scholarship Program Director: $500 per month to implement, monitor, and evaluate the program, and to work regularly and directly with GEI. This monthly stipend will come directly from the Liberia Scholarship Program budget. The approximate time being spend managing the program will be 10 hours per week.
Lizzy Scully—Liberia Scholarship Program Project Manager: A to-be-determined monthly stipend to raise funds and find donors for the LSP in both the United States and Liberia, act as a liaison between GEI’s board and CGS, develop, expand, and evaluate the LSP program, and raise awareness of the program through marketing and public relations. The approximate time spent on the project will be an average of five-10 hours per week.
Two teachers for after-school scholarship program—to be hired upon implementation of the program and to be paid $100 per month, for a total of $2,400 per year.
Honorarium—Guest speakers to be hired upon implementation of program and to be paid a small stipend. Total of $400 per year.
Management plan/organizational structure/administration
Board of Directors of GEI— Heidi Wirtz (Chair), Lizzy Scully (Vice Chair), Elizabeth O’Neill (floating board member), and Justin Voorhees (treasurer and accountant)
Co-founder, Director of Fund Raising—Heidi Wirtz
Co-founder, Director of Marketing/Communications—Lizzy Scully
Assistant Director of Marketing/Communications—Jancy Quinn
LSP Program Director in Liberia—Emily Sherman-Davis
Floating volunteers
Sherman-Davis reports to Scully; Quinn and other volunteers report to Scully and Wirtz; Wirtz and Scully report to BOD; the budget and all money exchanged will be administered and monitored by Justin Voorhees, GEI’s treasurer and accountant.
Adequacy of resources
GEI was awarded the Croc’s/Outside Magazine Inspiring Soles Award grant totaling $5,000 December 2008, $4,500 of which is designated to fund the basic scholarship program through Spring 2010. GEI has an additional $3,500 raised from fundraising efforts.
See the current budget for existing scholarship program: Attachment 3a-Scholarship Student costs 2008-09.
See the complete proposed budget for the expanded LSP program: Attachment 4a-Expanded Program Budget, which includes extra sheets detailing: total cost of uniforms, books, and ID cards; total cost of after school program; total scholarship fees for 100 girls; projected overhead for GEI; and travel cost for project director in Liberia.
Equitable access/statement of diversity/nondiscriminatory policies for hiring new personnel
GEI provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.
GEI expressly prohibits any form of unlawful employee harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of GEI’s employees to perform their expected job duties is absolutely not tolerated
Performance Evaluation Plan
Criteria for success of project:
Our criteria for short-term success for the Liberia Scholarship Program is:
1. If participants maintain reasonable grades, attend class regularly, and graduate from high school.
2. If participants have elevated levels of self esteem upon completion of the program.
3. If participants maintain good health.
4. If schools are more stable due to regular payment of dues
Our criteria for long-term success for the LSP:
5. If participants seek gainful employment or higher education upon completion of high school.
6. If participants avoid early marriage and pregnancy
7. If participants maintain good reproductive health, including avoiding early pregnancy and STDs and utilizing birth control methods.
8. If participating children have elevated levels of self esteem upon completion of the program.
9. If participants begin to utilize their education to give back to the community by entering the public realm as politicians, leaders of groups to empower women.
How we will monitor the program:
CGS has and will continue to do rigorous screening of the girls to ensure the likelihood that they will follow the tenets of the scholarship program. Screening includes: assessing the needs of the girls by talking with them and their families; evaluating one-page essays that they write describing their desire to participate in the program; assessing the motivation of the girls by talking with their teachers and school principals; assessing their grades; and regularly monitoring their progress.
CGS will do follow-up tracking of the high school graduates of the program to measure their attainment of higher education or jobs and compare those numbers to non-participants. CGS will also administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to measure the change in their attitudes about higher education and securing gainful employment.
CGS will do follow-up tracking of the high school graduates of the program to measure the numbers of participants who married or got pregnant and compare that to non-participants. CGS will also administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to measure the change in their levels of confidence and feelings of control over their lives.
CGS will administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to the family members of participants as well as teachers and principals in participating schools to gauge improvements.
CGS will administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to the girls and to the mothers cooking the meals to find out how many children are eating the meals and finishing their plates, as well as to determine the high quality of the food, the timely serving of the food, whether the children like the food or not, and whether or not the restaurants are sanitary.
CGS will administer pre- and post-program survey response comparisons to gauge the level of skills received by the participants as well as their feelings of self-esteem.
CGS will do follow-up tracking of girls after they graduate from high school.
Measuring the success of the program:
The GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program is evaluated quantitatively by using baseline data. CGS and participating teachers and principals are responsible for collecting and comparing grades and attendance records at the end of each semester. Behavioral surveys are also conducted each semester by the same team. Summative reports for each scholarship student are prepared for funders and GEI board members.
Students, parents/caregivers, teachers, and principals are evaluated qualitatively by using pre- and post-program surveys by CGS. A summative report is prepared for review by all stakeholders.
The quality of the GEI-CGS Liberia Scholarship Program is examined quarterly by the project manager in the United States (Scully) using data reported and prepared by the program director in Liberia (Sherman-Davis).
A report on the program is prepared by the project manager in the United States (Scully) and presented to the GEI Board of Directors for review on a quarterly basis.
Strategy for success:
At the beginning of the first school year, a committee of stakeholders will be created to evaluate the scholarship program in Liberia. The committee will include: the program director for the scholarship program, the U.S. project manager for the scholarship program, one to two teachers or administrators from each school where the scholarships are being implemented, student leaders of the reproductive health education program, and four parents of students enrolled in the program. At the close of the school year, the committee of stakeholders will evaluate all information, and recommendations for improvement will be made.
At the point at which funds have been secured, a committee of evaluators will be created in the United States. The committee will include: GEI’s board of directors, the program director for the scholarship program, the U.S. project manager for the scholarship program, and four to five additional people, who are involved with or staff nonprofit organizations that focus on education. The project director in the United States (Scully) will compile all the above-mentioned data and present it to the committee of evaluators at the close of the first school year. At the close of the school year, the committee of evaluators will evaluate all information, and recommendations for improvement will be made.
Dissemination of information
The project director in the United States (Scully) will compile all information for dissemination. All board members, Common Ground Society employees, and grantors will receive a copy of the evaluation findings. They will also be posted for the public on the GEI blog, and highlights of the program will be sent to GEI members via the enews letter.
Year End Giving Letter
We completed our year-end giving letter campaign and got 350 letters out to friends, family, and colleagues. I've pasted the text below. For people wanting to donate as a gift to a family member or friend, we will be keeping track of names and sending out thank you notes after Christmas. Thanks for your generous support!
Dear YOU
Two years ago, while on a rock climbing expedition to the Karakoram Range of Pakistan, Lizzy Scully and I stayed in the remote village of Khane in the Hushe Valley. During our visit to the village’s two schools, we experienced a major aha moment that changed our lives. Shocked, we found feces on the grounds of the dilapidated two-room girls’ school, but a beautiful garden, four rooms, and white washed walls at the boys’ school. That evening we decided to find a way to support educational opportunities for women and girls in remote, mountainous regions of the world. Soon after, we founded Girls Education International.
Since our inception, we have successfully implemented a scholarship program for 47 girls in Liberia, provided school fees to two Nepalese girls, and established a relationship with a Pakistani NGO that will do a viability assessment for a school renovation project in Khane, spring 2009.
Our programs help girls like 18-year-old Gifty Yohn, who was just four years old in 1994 when she became one of a million refugees from Liberia’s brutal civil war. Gifty lost her father to cholera, her family home to looters and vandals, and any opportunity for an education. She and her six siblings live on less than $1 per day, which her mother earns selling fish at a stall in the local market. Gifty wants to become a nurse, but hasn’t been able to consistently pay her school fees. However, in August 2008, this promising student won a Girls Ed scholarship that will enable her to complete high school.
So why am I telling you this? Because Lizzy and I need help in order to expand and sustain our programs. Your generous donation will give us the means to do this. Think about it, for just $71 you can pay for a Liberian girl’s education for one year. Give your donation in someone else’s name as a holiday gift, and you will double your impact by raising awareness for Girls Ed and educating a girl. We know this is a tough time to ask for money, but educated girls are the world’s next great resource!
Sincerely,
Heidi Wirtz
Co-founder Girls Education International
www.girlsed.org
Please mail tax deductible donations:
The Mountain Fund*
c/o GEI
39 Madison, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
*GEI operates under the umbrella of TMF, a 501(c)3 organization.
Dear YOU
Two years ago, while on a rock climbing expedition to the Karakoram Range of Pakistan, Lizzy Scully and I stayed in the remote village of Khane in the Hushe Valley. During our visit to the village’s two schools, we experienced a major aha moment that changed our lives. Shocked, we found feces on the grounds of the dilapidated two-room girls’ school, but a beautiful garden, four rooms, and white washed walls at the boys’ school. That evening we decided to find a way to support educational opportunities for women and girls in remote, mountainous regions of the world. Soon after, we founded Girls Education International.
Since our inception, we have successfully implemented a scholarship program for 47 girls in Liberia, provided school fees to two Nepalese girls, and established a relationship with a Pakistani NGO that will do a viability assessment for a school renovation project in Khane, spring 2009.
Our programs help girls like 18-year-old Gifty Yohn, who was just four years old in 1994 when she became one of a million refugees from Liberia’s brutal civil war. Gifty lost her father to cholera, her family home to looters and vandals, and any opportunity for an education. She and her six siblings live on less than $1 per day, which her mother earns selling fish at a stall in the local market. Gifty wants to become a nurse, but hasn’t been able to consistently pay her school fees. However, in August 2008, this promising student won a Girls Ed scholarship that will enable her to complete high school.
So why am I telling you this? Because Lizzy and I need help in order to expand and sustain our programs. Your generous donation will give us the means to do this. Think about it, for just $71 you can pay for a Liberian girl’s education for one year. Give your donation in someone else’s name as a holiday gift, and you will double your impact by raising awareness for Girls Ed and educating a girl. We know this is a tough time to ask for money, but educated girls are the world’s next great resource!
Sincerely,
Heidi Wirtz
Co-founder Girls Education International
www.girlsed.org
Please mail tax deductible donations:
The Mountain Fund*
c/o GEI
39 Madison, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
*GEI operates under the umbrella of TMF, a 501(c)3 organization.
Monday, December 08, 2008
More news
We continue to move forward with plans. The grant is nearly completed. This Wednesday Justin and I will get together to tighten up the budget plan as well as talk about the future budget plan for the organization. I am meeting with a variety of heavy hitters in the nonprofit industry next week in an effort to figure out how to dial into the philanthropic community, plus we have a marketing meeting this Saturday during which we plan on coming up with our strategic marketing and fundraising plans. Hopefully by January we will have a solid business plan in place that incorporates the marketing/fundraising plans.
Don't forget to vote for Heidi!
Don't forget to vote for Heidi!
Monday, December 01, 2008
Girls Ed could win a $25,000 grant if You Vote NOW!
Heidi climbing during HERA Climb4Life, SLC, 2007, photo by John Evans
December 1, 2008—Heidi Wirtz, professional climber and The North Face Athlete, up to win the $25,000 Inspiring Soles Award
The North Face athlete and professional climber Heidi Wirtz, co-founder of the nonprofit Girls Education International (Girls Ed), was notified in October that she was one of five semifinalists for the Inspiring Soles Award. Votes are now being collected to choose the finalist at the Inspiring Soles Website. Wirtz is the only climber in the group of athletes nominated for the award. Previous climbers who have won the award include Timmy O’Neill, who works with the disabled.
Heidi building a roof on a Moroccan House. Photo by Kris Erickson
Created by Crocs Inc. and Outside Magazine, the Inspiring Soles Award celebrates athletes who have dedicated their lives to shattering boundaries and raising awareness for meaningful causes. Wirtz has worked tirelessly for the past two years on fundraising and implementing projects for Girls Ed, and over the years she has regularly volunteered for HERA Climb4Life events, the Khumbu Climbing School and the dZi Foundation.
As a semifinalist, Wirtz received $5,000 to donate to the charity of her choice plus $500 worth of Crocs merchandise.
“It was fantastic to win $5000,” said Wirtz of the award. “It will pay for our Liberia Scholarship Program (LSP) through spring of 2010.” Implemented as Girls Ed’s first major project, the LSP provides $71 per year, per child to 47 girls in the mountainous regions of Liberia so they can pay their school fees.
As a finalist, Wirtz would win an additional $25,000, a Crocs shopping spree, a trip to Santa Monica, a full-page profile in Outside Magazine and a PSA ad for Girls Education International.
“If we win the $25,000, we could also pay for the viability assessment we need to do in a remote village in the Hushe Valley of Pakistan where we want to renovate a girls’ school,” Wirtz added, enthusiastically.
Girls Education International seeks to raise awareness and funds to help educate women and girls in impoverished areas in the mountainous regions of the world. For more information, please visit: www.girlsed.org or write to girlsed@gmail.com.
Heidi in Morocco, photo by Kris Erickson
Heidi in Morocco, photo by Kris Erickson
Please vote for Heidi to be the Inspiring Soles Finalist
Please go to this link and vote for Heidi to be the Inspiring Soles Finalist. If she wins, she earns $25,000 for Girls Education International!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Lizzy on the Radio
Tune in this Monday, December 1 at 6:56 a.m. mountain time to Boulder's (CO) independent radio station, KGNU, to hear a short interview I did with Nikki Kayser regarding Heidi's & my nonprofit, Girls Education International. I talk about our program in Liberia and future projects that we aspire to do. KGNU is 88.5 FM and 1390AM, or you can go to KGNU's Web site later that day and listen to itl.
I will also post that interview on the blog that afternoon.
I will also post that interview on the blog that afternoon.
Updates on our activity and purpose behind this blog
I started this blog with the idea that I would record absolutely everything our nonprofit has done from day one to get going. I haven't completely succeeded in this effort primarily because of a lack of time. However, there is a pretty good record of what we've been up to. I'll try to fill in some of the blanks over the next month. For now I'll start with a complete update of what we've been up to this autumn.
Our board--which still consists of Elizabeth O'Neill, Justin Voorhees, Heidi Wirtz, and myself--decided that we needed to pay someone to do some of the work that we needed to get done, but haven't been able to get done for lack of time. At a meeting we had about six weeks ago we decided to pay me to write a grant--for a very low cost of $15 per hour (the low average is $40 per hour, but can upwards of a few hundred)--and to pay Heidi and myself to put together a donor database and send off year-end giving letters--for the same $15 per hour. We established that amount of money because we currently have (or will soon have) about $10,000 in the bank from our fundraising efforts and from the Inspiring Soles grant (which we don't actually have in hand yet...) We're working a total of 110 hours on these projects, which equals about $1650. We will have to pay an additional $350 or so to get quickbooks to manage our accounting and also to pay for supplies for the year-end giving letter. After speaking with numerous people and doing research, we reasoned that spending 20% on overhead at this point would be well worth it, especially if our giving letter campaign is successful. We will make every effort to never exceed paying 20% for overhead costs.
In regards to the grant: We understand that because we are such a new organization, it will be difficult to get substantial grants. However, we believe it is important to have a template of information that we can modify for any grant opportunities that come our way in the future as we make more contacts. We will also be applying for grants, despite the odds. We think that because we have some strong NGO partners in other countries that have been operating for years that we might have a reasonable chance at receiving some grants regardless of our newness. We are applying for a Ford Foundation grant in December, and last month we applied for a grant/fundraising relationship with BoldeReach, an organization out of Boulder, Colo.
Writing the grant has provided valuable information in regards to how Heidi and I need to plan the future of GEI. Basically, in researching and writing the grant I discovered that we have many gaps to fill before we can be fully operational and successful. We have put plans in place to have all these gaps filled by January 2009.
I'll break down the process of writing the grant and what I discovered in the following outline and narrative:
First, I read extensively on how to shape grants, who to approach, and the things GEI needs to have in place before any foundation will consider giving us money; I read "Grant Writing for Dummies," which proved to be incredibly valuable and was open next to me on the table the entire time I was writing the grant; and I spent 20 to 30 hours reading materials I found on GrantCraft, a comprehensive Web site of grant writing information created by the Ford Foundation. I also spoke with various people from the nonprofit Engineers Without Borders, including their founder, the director and assistant director of fundraising, and the grant writer (I will go ahead an include those notes at the end of this blog so that anyone interested in details on what I am about to expound on can read more). Because I had the opportunity to pick their brains, I also got a lot of great tips and advice for other important things we need to think about.
The most important things I discovered were that nonprofits have a difficult time getting grants unless:
1. They have actually been around for at least five years (and have shown they can start, implement, and follow through with projects, including managing the money;
2. They have their accounting practices accredited by an outside source;
3. They have some paid employees (which reassures grantors that there money won't disappear when volunteers inevitably burn out or end up with not enough time to see projects through)
4. They have complete transparency with finances;
5. They have some concrete, long-term fundraising plans in place;
6. And they are accredited by the various organizations that monitor nonprofit activities.
I also discovered:
1. Year-end giving letters that target people we know, previous donors, associates, etc, are what bring in the most money. All the EWB people stressed the need to establish personal ties with people that can be developed over the long term. Those relationships will sustain the organization, especially considering it is very difficult to get operational grants. Grantors typically designate grants to go to specific projects. However, in order to implement our projects, Heidi and I have finally realized that we have to be paid something. If we want to expand the programs we currently have and expand our operations to different countries, we have to be able to sustain ourselves as well as our programs. Thus, we decided to go ahead and implement a comprehensive year-end giving letter campaign that includes the mailing out of 500 letters with follow up emails, which we are mailing out Saturday, December 6th (after our letter-stuffing party, which is being sponsored by Oskar Blues--Thanks Dale and Chad!). We are currently using Filemaker Pro to organize the list of 400 or so donors that Heidi and I have so far put together, and The Mountain Fund is generously allowing us to use their license with Constant Contact to send out follow-up email newsletters later in December. We hope to bring in sufficient funds to pay for Heidi and I to get specific projects done, to manage our projects, and, of course, to pay for our projects.
2. Developing a donor database from the get-go is key. Basically we need to figure out a way to manage our donors including: keeping track of who has given us what in terms of money or in-kind donations; thanking people who have donated with personal calls and/or letters; knowing where the donors came from; finding out who is most likely to donate again; and the list goes on. Heidi and I have been developing this. We are still not sure which management system we are going to go with, but for now I'm using Filemaker Pro because it makes sense, and I have a free one-month trial period to use it.
3. We need a comprehensive fundraising plan that we will use in conjunction with a comprehensive marketing plan. We have a new marketing person on board--Jancy Quinn--who will be helping us develop this. We plan to have both outlined by the beginning of January. We have already made a good start. We feel that if we figure these two plans out, we can combine them with our already existing strategic plan to come up with a viable business plan.
OK, that's all for now. I've got a load of work to do, including putting together the rest of the donor database and writing the second draft of the year-end giving letter (which I will post when I am finished with it).
Notes with Founder of Engineers Without Borders:
Summary of meeting notes with Bruce Grant of Engineers Without Borders:
1. We need to create an auditable database from day one. All the “big charity watchdogs” (online sites) that evaluate nonprofits will only start evaluating us from the time we start auditing ourselves. We have to pay an accountant to do this. We have to be licensed or approved by these watchdog groups in order to get foundations to pay any attention to us at all. We also have to be recommended by these groups if we’re going to have any chance of getting a grant.
a. Also, foundations will find us if we are on these charity watchdog sites.
b. Charity groups: Charitynavigator.com, charity.org, etc
2. We need to plan out a five-year plan now. Question: what do we want to look like in five years.
3. There is nothing wrong with paying ourselves to get going, but we have to be careful to not spend more than 20% of our income on overhead. We never want overhead to go over 20% of our income.
4. We need to do extensive networking as soon as possible.
a. We need to hit every female business owner on the Front Range. I have a list of the top 100 female-owned firms on the FR.
b. We need to get out and start talking with people in person, including legislators & politicians, businesswomen and men, and anyone else who might be able to help us.
c. We need to find an Angel donor.
d. Boulder Reach. We need to speak to these women.
e. We need to find out how to access charity lists and rolls.
f. Schedule a meeting with Heidi, the main fundraiser for EWB.
g. We need to get on Linked in and link to as many people as possible.
h. We need to find Top Tier people who can influence our success and tie us into other people.
i. We need to get in contact with as many other nonprofits as possible and learn from them.
j. Avoid faith-based orgs and government grants. The moment we take US government money, our Muslim students are at risk.
5. We need a marketing plan:
a. We need to write a quarterly email newsletter that we send out via constant contact
b. We need to figure out how to better market our nonprofit with Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.
c. Annual Giving Challenge. Parade Magazine. 700 nonprofits registered last year. Through viral marketing they wanted to find out how many people could give how many people 10 dollars.
10. We need to start a “Year-End Giving” letter writing campaign now, so that we get letters out to 500 people before December. 80% of individual donors give money around holidays.
a. These letters should be from each of our board members and should be personalized.
b. These letters should include a powerful story about one of the girls we have helped.
c. These letters should also include the founders’ story
11. We should not focus on grants until we make more contacts because we will not likely get grants unless we know people in high places.
12. We must emphasize transparency on our Web site as much as possible. Everyone wants to know that we’re honest. We need to report every dime on our site or blog.
13. We need to find more board members, and we need to make sure that every board member brings at least two of these three things to the board: Time, Talent and Treasure (or Work, Wealth and Wisdom).
14. We need to have a “prudent reserve.” Which means we should always make sure to have a certain amount of money in the bank. In this case, since we have just $10K, we should make sure to keep $2K always in the bank. We can increase this number once we raise more money. Money has to come in all the time if it’s going out.
15. We need to build a donor list asap.
16. We should never write a grant unless we have a high expectation of winning that money. You have to know people in high places to even be considered.
17. We need to refine our Bylaws
Notes from meeting with Assistant Director and Director of Fundraising at EWB:
1. They said the most important thing that we need to do right now is: 1) compile a database of donors and; 2) get out a year-end giving letter.
a. There is free software online (Opensource and Sales Force are two)
b. Get lists of contacts from our board members
c. Contact stores, sponsors, etc, to see if we can get lists of potential donors from them.
d. Network more on Facebook and Web sites like that.
e. We need to recognize people who donate to us, especially people who donate a lot of money. Apparently 80% of nonprofits’ funds come from donors and a huge percentage (they said somewhere around 3/4s won’t donate unless they get some sort of recognition of that donation).
f. All board members should be involved in the year-end giving letter to some degree.
2. They reiterated that we should not focus on grant writing, especially now because we are much more likely to get money from people who have donated already and from our personal contacts.
3. They said writing a grant as a template is a good idea, but they warned that:
a. Really great grant writers have a 5-10% return
b. We’re not likely to get any big grants until we have been established for at least 5 years.
c. We have a chance to get smaller grants
4. They suggested networking as much as possible with:
a. Schools. Start a sister school program, have letter and photo exchanges, and encourage the kids at local schools to raise money for our scholarships and other programs. Bring some stuff back from Liberia or Nepal and give it to the kids at the sister schools to sell/auction
b. Find wealthy people and get them to serve on our board; find angel donor
5. They said we need to get people on the board who either have money or who can focus on making money, and that should be the main job of board members.
6. Fundraising events. They said the key element of fundraising events should be the collection of information. That until we get more efficient and effective at fundraising events, we aren’t going to make much money, but we do have the opportunity to really build up our donor database.
7. They said it’s not a bad idea to get someone who wants to work for free and tell them to earn their own salary, but they also said that most of the time the people who “stick” are people who are passionate about the cause already (i.e. me and Heidi).
I haven't summarized the meeting notes with the grant writer yet, and so I shall leave those out.
Our board--which still consists of Elizabeth O'Neill, Justin Voorhees, Heidi Wirtz, and myself--decided that we needed to pay someone to do some of the work that we needed to get done, but haven't been able to get done for lack of time. At a meeting we had about six weeks ago we decided to pay me to write a grant--for a very low cost of $15 per hour (the low average is $40 per hour, but can upwards of a few hundred)--and to pay Heidi and myself to put together a donor database and send off year-end giving letters--for the same $15 per hour. We established that amount of money because we currently have (or will soon have) about $10,000 in the bank from our fundraising efforts and from the Inspiring Soles grant (which we don't actually have in hand yet...) We're working a total of 110 hours on these projects, which equals about $1650. We will have to pay an additional $350 or so to get quickbooks to manage our accounting and also to pay for supplies for the year-end giving letter. After speaking with numerous people and doing research, we reasoned that spending 20% on overhead at this point would be well worth it, especially if our giving letter campaign is successful. We will make every effort to never exceed paying 20% for overhead costs.
In regards to the grant: We understand that because we are such a new organization, it will be difficult to get substantial grants. However, we believe it is important to have a template of information that we can modify for any grant opportunities that come our way in the future as we make more contacts. We will also be applying for grants, despite the odds. We think that because we have some strong NGO partners in other countries that have been operating for years that we might have a reasonable chance at receiving some grants regardless of our newness. We are applying for a Ford Foundation grant in December, and last month we applied for a grant/fundraising relationship with BoldeReach, an organization out of Boulder, Colo.
Writing the grant has provided valuable information in regards to how Heidi and I need to plan the future of GEI. Basically, in researching and writing the grant I discovered that we have many gaps to fill before we can be fully operational and successful. We have put plans in place to have all these gaps filled by January 2009.
I'll break down the process of writing the grant and what I discovered in the following outline and narrative:
First, I read extensively on how to shape grants, who to approach, and the things GEI needs to have in place before any foundation will consider giving us money; I read "Grant Writing for Dummies," which proved to be incredibly valuable and was open next to me on the table the entire time I was writing the grant; and I spent 20 to 30 hours reading materials I found on GrantCraft, a comprehensive Web site of grant writing information created by the Ford Foundation. I also spoke with various people from the nonprofit Engineers Without Borders, including their founder, the director and assistant director of fundraising, and the grant writer (I will go ahead an include those notes at the end of this blog so that anyone interested in details on what I am about to expound on can read more). Because I had the opportunity to pick their brains, I also got a lot of great tips and advice for other important things we need to think about.
The most important things I discovered were that nonprofits have a difficult time getting grants unless:
1. They have actually been around for at least five years (and have shown they can start, implement, and follow through with projects, including managing the money;
2. They have their accounting practices accredited by an outside source;
3. They have some paid employees (which reassures grantors that there money won't disappear when volunteers inevitably burn out or end up with not enough time to see projects through)
4. They have complete transparency with finances;
5. They have some concrete, long-term fundraising plans in place;
6. And they are accredited by the various organizations that monitor nonprofit activities.
I also discovered:
1. Year-end giving letters that target people we know, previous donors, associates, etc, are what bring in the most money. All the EWB people stressed the need to establish personal ties with people that can be developed over the long term. Those relationships will sustain the organization, especially considering it is very difficult to get operational grants. Grantors typically designate grants to go to specific projects. However, in order to implement our projects, Heidi and I have finally realized that we have to be paid something. If we want to expand the programs we currently have and expand our operations to different countries, we have to be able to sustain ourselves as well as our programs. Thus, we decided to go ahead and implement a comprehensive year-end giving letter campaign that includes the mailing out of 500 letters with follow up emails, which we are mailing out Saturday, December 6th (after our letter-stuffing party, which is being sponsored by Oskar Blues--Thanks Dale and Chad!). We are currently using Filemaker Pro to organize the list of 400 or so donors that Heidi and I have so far put together, and The Mountain Fund is generously allowing us to use their license with Constant Contact to send out follow-up email newsletters later in December. We hope to bring in sufficient funds to pay for Heidi and I to get specific projects done, to manage our projects, and, of course, to pay for our projects.
2. Developing a donor database from the get-go is key. Basically we need to figure out a way to manage our donors including: keeping track of who has given us what in terms of money or in-kind donations; thanking people who have donated with personal calls and/or letters; knowing where the donors came from; finding out who is most likely to donate again; and the list goes on. Heidi and I have been developing this. We are still not sure which management system we are going to go with, but for now I'm using Filemaker Pro because it makes sense, and I have a free one-month trial period to use it.
3. We need a comprehensive fundraising plan that we will use in conjunction with a comprehensive marketing plan. We have a new marketing person on board--Jancy Quinn--who will be helping us develop this. We plan to have both outlined by the beginning of January. We have already made a good start. We feel that if we figure these two plans out, we can combine them with our already existing strategic plan to come up with a viable business plan.
OK, that's all for now. I've got a load of work to do, including putting together the rest of the donor database and writing the second draft of the year-end giving letter (which I will post when I am finished with it).
Notes with Founder of Engineers Without Borders:
Summary of meeting notes with Bruce Grant of Engineers Without Borders:
1. We need to create an auditable database from day one. All the “big charity watchdogs” (online sites) that evaluate nonprofits will only start evaluating us from the time we start auditing ourselves. We have to pay an accountant to do this. We have to be licensed or approved by these watchdog groups in order to get foundations to pay any attention to us at all. We also have to be recommended by these groups if we’re going to have any chance of getting a grant.
a. Also, foundations will find us if we are on these charity watchdog sites.
b. Charity groups: Charitynavigator.com, charity.org, etc
2. We need to plan out a five-year plan now. Question: what do we want to look like in five years.
3. There is nothing wrong with paying ourselves to get going, but we have to be careful to not spend more than 20% of our income on overhead. We never want overhead to go over 20% of our income.
4. We need to do extensive networking as soon as possible.
a. We need to hit every female business owner on the Front Range. I have a list of the top 100 female-owned firms on the FR.
b. We need to get out and start talking with people in person, including legislators & politicians, businesswomen and men, and anyone else who might be able to help us.
c. We need to find an Angel donor.
d. Boulder Reach. We need to speak to these women.
e. We need to find out how to access charity lists and rolls.
f. Schedule a meeting with Heidi, the main fundraiser for EWB.
g. We need to get on Linked in and link to as many people as possible.
h. We need to find Top Tier people who can influence our success and tie us into other people.
i. We need to get in contact with as many other nonprofits as possible and learn from them.
j. Avoid faith-based orgs and government grants. The moment we take US government money, our Muslim students are at risk.
5. We need a marketing plan:
a. We need to write a quarterly email newsletter that we send out via constant contact
b. We need to figure out how to better market our nonprofit with Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.
c. Annual Giving Challenge. Parade Magazine. 700 nonprofits registered last year. Through viral marketing they wanted to find out how many people could give how many people 10 dollars.
10. We need to start a “Year-End Giving” letter writing campaign now, so that we get letters out to 500 people before December. 80% of individual donors give money around holidays.
a. These letters should be from each of our board members and should be personalized.
b. These letters should include a powerful story about one of the girls we have helped.
c. These letters should also include the founders’ story
11. We should not focus on grants until we make more contacts because we will not likely get grants unless we know people in high places.
12. We must emphasize transparency on our Web site as much as possible. Everyone wants to know that we’re honest. We need to report every dime on our site or blog.
13. We need to find more board members, and we need to make sure that every board member brings at least two of these three things to the board: Time, Talent and Treasure (or Work, Wealth and Wisdom).
14. We need to have a “prudent reserve.” Which means we should always make sure to have a certain amount of money in the bank. In this case, since we have just $10K, we should make sure to keep $2K always in the bank. We can increase this number once we raise more money. Money has to come in all the time if it’s going out.
15. We need to build a donor list asap.
16. We should never write a grant unless we have a high expectation of winning that money. You have to know people in high places to even be considered.
17. We need to refine our Bylaws
Notes from meeting with Assistant Director and Director of Fundraising at EWB:
1. They said the most important thing that we need to do right now is: 1) compile a database of donors and; 2) get out a year-end giving letter.
a. There is free software online (Opensource and Sales Force are two)
b. Get lists of contacts from our board members
c. Contact stores, sponsors, etc, to see if we can get lists of potential donors from them.
d. Network more on Facebook and Web sites like that.
e. We need to recognize people who donate to us, especially people who donate a lot of money. Apparently 80% of nonprofits’ funds come from donors and a huge percentage (they said somewhere around 3/4s won’t donate unless they get some sort of recognition of that donation).
f. All board members should be involved in the year-end giving letter to some degree.
2. They reiterated that we should not focus on grant writing, especially now because we are much more likely to get money from people who have donated already and from our personal contacts.
3. They said writing a grant as a template is a good idea, but they warned that:
a. Really great grant writers have a 5-10% return
b. We’re not likely to get any big grants until we have been established for at least 5 years.
c. We have a chance to get smaller grants
4. They suggested networking as much as possible with:
a. Schools. Start a sister school program, have letter and photo exchanges, and encourage the kids at local schools to raise money for our scholarships and other programs. Bring some stuff back from Liberia or Nepal and give it to the kids at the sister schools to sell/auction
b. Find wealthy people and get them to serve on our board; find angel donor
5. They said we need to get people on the board who either have money or who can focus on making money, and that should be the main job of board members.
6. Fundraising events. They said the key element of fundraising events should be the collection of information. That until we get more efficient and effective at fundraising events, we aren’t going to make much money, but we do have the opportunity to really build up our donor database.
7. They said it’s not a bad idea to get someone who wants to work for free and tell them to earn their own salary, but they also said that most of the time the people who “stick” are people who are passionate about the cause already (i.e. me and Heidi).
I haven't summarized the meeting notes with the grant writer yet, and so I shall leave those out.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Response from Emily Sherman-Davis, Liberia
This note is from Common Ground Society's Program Director Emily Sherman-Davis in response to a note I sent her along with those terrible statistics I published on my blog yesterday. I wrote, "Those statistics make me feel sick." She responded:
Lizzy
I can understand how you feel, but it is also pathetic when you see the girls or the victims themselves. The personal tragedy is too terrible and I can tell you stories upon stories of what I saw during the war. When it comes to rape, especially up country, people are too scared to talk about it, women are seen as tools to be used by men, girls get ostracized because of rape and sometimes even blamed. Women live in a very harsh world here. It is only now that thngs are taking a different trend. We have a woman president and she is doing her best. But women need to stand up for themselves. How can they, when they can't get an education. This is the struggle and it is going to be a long and ardous journey. I am happy that your organization is helping our girls. Someday, it is my desire that you come and see this country and the children you are helping.
Rgds
Emily
Lizzy
I can understand how you feel, but it is also pathetic when you see the girls or the victims themselves. The personal tragedy is too terrible and I can tell you stories upon stories of what I saw during the war. When it comes to rape, especially up country, people are too scared to talk about it, women are seen as tools to be used by men, girls get ostracized because of rape and sometimes even blamed. Women live in a very harsh world here. It is only now that thngs are taking a different trend. We have a woman president and she is doing her best. But women need to stand up for themselves. How can they, when they can't get an education. This is the struggle and it is going to be a long and ardous journey. I am happy that your organization is helping our girls. Someday, it is my desire that you come and see this country and the children you are helping.
Rgds
Emily
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The situation for women in Liberia is dire
The situation for women in Liberia is dire, which is why we are committed to supporting our Liberia Scholarship Program for the long term and expanding it over the next few years. I found this entry on a woman's blog. It is powerful. Among other things that are really sticking in my head are the facts that the rape rate is upwards of 77% and the literacy rate for women is less than 30%. To read more, visit this powerful blog.
SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2007
Personalizing the reality of Liberia's gender statistics
Statistics about the situation of women in Liberia are few. After 14 years of civil conflict, the lack of data is a huge constraint for government and development partners alike. One of the ongoing priorities is to gather data to characterize the population and inform policy, especially as the country moves into the process of drafting its 5-year Poverty Reduction Strategy. Over the past week, I have been working with the Ministry of Gender to review and revise the nation's Gender Profile and Gender Needs Assessment, telling a story with what little information is available. I'm keeping my nerdy fingers crossed that the Demographic and Health Survey data will be out in July, as promised, so that I can do some data crunching to expand upon the data we have now (including violence prevalence rates, perceptions on HIV/AIDs, education attainment and women's health concerns). Below, I have attempted to pass along some of the harsh reality that the current reports contain.
Think of a room of 100 women/girls in your life.
I picture my mom, 2 grandmothers and 7 aunts. 17 girl cousins, my 2 high school best friends (aka sisters), my god-daughter. My 11 college roommates and 15 young women who participated in service trips, retreats and adventures with me at Boston College. My 32 female peers in the 2008 MPA/ID class at the Kennedy School and 4 faculty/staff who have influenced my studies throughout the years. 4 women who were my community in Laredo and 8 mentors from Casa de Misericordia Domestic Violence Shelter.
100 women. Who would be in your room?
Now, imagine that these 100 women live, not in the United States, but in Liberia. What would this mean?*
Women will average six children each and the entire room will mother 620 children. 97 of those babies will die before they reach the age of 5 years old. Pick 61 women who will watch at least one child die before it reached school age. About 25 women will experience this loss more than once. Luckily in my own randomized exercise, my mom was one of the 39 women who never had a child die. 4 of the 97 dead infants belonged to my friend Maggie.
Now select a group of 11 women and a group of 4. 11 women will deliver their children with the assistance of trained medical professionals; 4 women will die giving childbirth. My Granny Stanger, cousin Darci, roommate Regina and classmate Caroline died while giving birth (I’ll ignore the fact that my Granny’s death might have erased the existence of 10% of the room).
Separate nearly two-thirds of the room: 74 women in the room will be illiterate adults – unable to read newspapers, street signs, books or guides to proper health care. As a comparison, if the room were 100 men, half would be illiterate. In my simulation, 7 out of my 32 Kennedy School classmates are able to read and write their names. My Aunt Denise and my Grandma Dauenbaugh no longer share books with each other and my god-daughter will never be able to read her birthday cards.
Now add in a new assumption, the room of women are all from the urban area of Monrovia:
28 work as market vender/petty traders, 5 work in clerical positions, 3 are skilled laborers or work in manufacturing. Overall, 41 women are working and of these 33 are self-employed.
Now assume your network of women comes from rural areas:
65 women have access to land for farming, but only 7 women in the room own land that they farm. In fact, even though the law of inheritance changed in 2003 to grant wives the right to 1/3 of their husbands’ property (previously, they had no rights over his property), 28 women in the room believe that the law does not even allow them to own land. (32 have husbands who believe the same). This is all in spite of the fact that women in Liberia are collectively responsible for 60% of the total agricultural production of the country.
Final scenario, the 100 women in the room were forced to leave their homes or were directly affected by the 14-year civil conflict in Liberia:
Separate just over three-quarters of the room. These 77 women were raped. 13 women became pregnant as a result of rape. In my room it was my Mom, aunt Jodi, cousin Cassie, 4 friends from Boston College, 2 colleagues from Laredo, and 4 of my KSG classmates.
42 women were subjected to internal body cavity searches.
23 women suffer from permanent physical disfigurement
Pick out one woman in the room. My random sampling drew my college roommate Lizzie. She was forced to eat or sell pieces of a loved-one’s body. Imagine her telling you a story similar to one of these:
“The soldiers cut my husband’s head off after he witnessed powerlessly them raping me. After they cut him into pieces, they put the pieces in the pot and asked me to cook it. After cooking, they forced us to eat. I am not the way I was before.”
Or
“My son was killed by a group of rebels and the body was cut into pieces and put into a wheelbarrow. They (rebels) gave it to me for sale. I did it because I was afraid to be cut to death.”
Only six women are free from physical/health consequences from the abuse they were subjected to during the war.*
SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2007
Personalizing the reality of Liberia's gender statistics
Statistics about the situation of women in Liberia are few. After 14 years of civil conflict, the lack of data is a huge constraint for government and development partners alike. One of the ongoing priorities is to gather data to characterize the population and inform policy, especially as the country moves into the process of drafting its 5-year Poverty Reduction Strategy. Over the past week, I have been working with the Ministry of Gender to review and revise the nation's Gender Profile and Gender Needs Assessment, telling a story with what little information is available. I'm keeping my nerdy fingers crossed that the Demographic and Health Survey data will be out in July, as promised, so that I can do some data crunching to expand upon the data we have now (including violence prevalence rates, perceptions on HIV/AIDs, education attainment and women's health concerns). Below, I have attempted to pass along some of the harsh reality that the current reports contain.
Think of a room of 100 women/girls in your life.
I picture my mom, 2 grandmothers and 7 aunts. 17 girl cousins, my 2 high school best friends (aka sisters), my god-daughter. My 11 college roommates and 15 young women who participated in service trips, retreats and adventures with me at Boston College. My 32 female peers in the 2008 MPA/ID class at the Kennedy School and 4 faculty/staff who have influenced my studies throughout the years. 4 women who were my community in Laredo and 8 mentors from Casa de Misericordia Domestic Violence Shelter.
100 women. Who would be in your room?
Now, imagine that these 100 women live, not in the United States, but in Liberia. What would this mean?*
Women will average six children each and the entire room will mother 620 children. 97 of those babies will die before they reach the age of 5 years old. Pick 61 women who will watch at least one child die before it reached school age. About 25 women will experience this loss more than once. Luckily in my own randomized exercise, my mom was one of the 39 women who never had a child die. 4 of the 97 dead infants belonged to my friend Maggie.
Now select a group of 11 women and a group of 4. 11 women will deliver their children with the assistance of trained medical professionals; 4 women will die giving childbirth. My Granny Stanger, cousin Darci, roommate Regina and classmate Caroline died while giving birth (I’ll ignore the fact that my Granny’s death might have erased the existence of 10% of the room).
Separate nearly two-thirds of the room: 74 women in the room will be illiterate adults – unable to read newspapers, street signs, books or guides to proper health care. As a comparison, if the room were 100 men, half would be illiterate. In my simulation, 7 out of my 32 Kennedy School classmates are able to read and write their names. My Aunt Denise and my Grandma Dauenbaugh no longer share books with each other and my god-daughter will never be able to read her birthday cards.
Now add in a new assumption, the room of women are all from the urban area of Monrovia:
28 work as market vender/petty traders, 5 work in clerical positions, 3 are skilled laborers or work in manufacturing. Overall, 41 women are working and of these 33 are self-employed.
Now assume your network of women comes from rural areas:
65 women have access to land for farming, but only 7 women in the room own land that they farm. In fact, even though the law of inheritance changed in 2003 to grant wives the right to 1/3 of their husbands’ property (previously, they had no rights over his property), 28 women in the room believe that the law does not even allow them to own land. (32 have husbands who believe the same). This is all in spite of the fact that women in Liberia are collectively responsible for 60% of the total agricultural production of the country.
Final scenario, the 100 women in the room were forced to leave their homes or were directly affected by the 14-year civil conflict in Liberia:
Separate just over three-quarters of the room. These 77 women were raped. 13 women became pregnant as a result of rape. In my room it was my Mom, aunt Jodi, cousin Cassie, 4 friends from Boston College, 2 colleagues from Laredo, and 4 of my KSG classmates.
42 women were subjected to internal body cavity searches.
23 women suffer from permanent physical disfigurement
Pick out one woman in the room. My random sampling drew my college roommate Lizzie. She was forced to eat or sell pieces of a loved-one’s body. Imagine her telling you a story similar to one of these:
“The soldiers cut my husband’s head off after he witnessed powerlessly them raping me. After they cut him into pieces, they put the pieces in the pot and asked me to cook it. After cooking, they forced us to eat. I am not the way I was before.”
Or
“My son was killed by a group of rebels and the body was cut into pieces and put into a wheelbarrow. They (rebels) gave it to me for sale. I did it because I was afraid to be cut to death.”
Only six women are free from physical/health consequences from the abuse they were subjected to during the war.*
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Update on Liberia
Since we have the $5,000 Inspiring Soles grant, we are now focusing on expanding our Liberia program to include 100 girls; we also hope to offer them some sort of meal plan, a stipend for books and uniforms, and we want to offer them some after school programs dedicated to raising awareness of reproductive issues, STDs, and other issues. I'm researching grants right now. We hope to have some grants out by the end of the year.
Our next board meeting is next week. I'll include notes from our last board meeting below and below that notes from my meeting with Bruce Grant, one of the founders of Engineers Without Borders.
-Lizzy
MEETING 10/14/08
Topics:
Where are we going:
Do we want to grow? And how? Growing small and slow seems to be the consensus.
Executive director discussion
Grant writing discussion
Possibly having paid positions.
Fund raising:
Fund Raiser 10/9:
1. We made $700 roughly.
Finances:
We have roughly $10,000
Need to make a schedule of allotted money for the year.
Project Updates:
Update on Pakistan:
1. We are on hold at the moment, but things seem to moving ahead.
Update on Liberia:
1. Need to Clarify how much each student receives, where remainder goes, how many students we are sponsoring.
2. Need to start writing grants.
Update on Nepal:
1. Possibly look into finding a Nepali NGO to partner with. **If we find potential partners perhaps I can go meet with them in Jan/Feb 09.
2. Need to send money for Jamling.
Tasks:
Justin:
1. Looking into 501(c)(3)
2. put together report of current financial status
Lizzy:
1. Fix website so that people can donate and link to TMF
2. Grant proposal
3. Get specifics for money in Liberia
4. Get money from Justin and send to Jamling.
Heidi:
1. Look into Executive Director duties and salaries
2. Contact Boulder Reach
3. Check with Emily on GEI Video
4. Work with Tsoler on connecting with Jah Vintage
5. Contact Sarah (new graphic designer) about Logo
Elizabeth:
1. Continue working with PDCN to push forward on Pakistan project
Summary of meeting notes with Bruce Grant of Engineers Without Borders:
1. We need to create an auditable database from day one. All the “big charity watchdogs” (online sites) that evaluate nonprofits will only start evaluating us from the time we start auditing ourselves. We have to pay an accountant to do this. We have to be licensed or approved by these watchdog groups in order to get foundations to pay any attention to us at all. We also have to be recommended by these groups if we’re going to have any chance of getting a grant.
a. Also, foundations will find us if we are on these charity watchdog sites.
b. Charity groups: Charitynavigator.com, charity.org, etc
2. We need to plan out a five-year plan now. Question: what do we want to look like in five years.
3. There is nothing wrong with paying ourselves to get going, but we have to be careful to not spend more than 20% of our income on overhead. We never want overhead to go over 20% of our income.
4. We need to do extensive networking as soon as possible.
a. We need to hit every female business owner on the Front Range. I have a list of the top 100 female-owned firms on the FR.
b. We need to get out and start talking with people in person, including legislators & politicians, businesswomen and men, and anyone else who might be able to help us.
c. We need to find an Angel donor.
d. Boulder Reach. We need to speak to these women.
e. We need to find out how to access charity lists and rolls.
f. Schedule a meeting with Heidi, the main fundraiser for EWB.
g. We need to get on Linked in and link to as many people as possible.
h. We need to find Top Tier people who can influence our success and tie us into other people.
i. We need to get in contact with as many other nonprofits as possible and learn from them.
j. Avoid faith-based orgs and government grants. The moment we take US government money, our Muslim students are at risk.
5. We need a marketing plan:
a. We need to write a quarterly email newsletter that we send out via constant contact
b. We need to figure out how to better market our nonprofit with Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.
c. Annual Giving Challenge. Parade Magazine. 700 nonprofits registered last year. Through viral marketing they wanted to find out how many people could give how many people 10 dollars.
10. We need to start a “Year-End Giving” letter writing campaign now, so that we get letters out to 500 people before December. 80% of individual donors give money around holidays.
a. These letters should be from each of our board members and should be personalized.
b. These letters should include a powerful story about one of the girls we have helped.
c. These letters should also include the founders’ story
11. We should not focus on grants until we make more contacts because we will not likely get grants unless we know people in high places.
12. We must emphasize transparency on our Web site as much as possible. Everyone wants to know that we’re honest. We need to report every dime on our site or blog.
13. We need to find more board members, and we need to make sure that every board member brings at least two of these three things to the board: Time, Talent and Treasure (or Work, Wealth and Wisdom).
14. We need to have a “prudent reserve.” Which means we should always make sure to have a certain amount of money in the bank. In this case, since we have just $10K, we should make sure to keep $2K always in the bank. We can increase this number once we raise more money. Money has to come in all the time if it’s going out.
15. We need to build a donor list asap.
16. We should never write a grant unless we have a high expectation of winning that money. You have to know people in high places to even be considered.
17. We need to refine our Bylaws
Our next board meeting is next week. I'll include notes from our last board meeting below and below that notes from my meeting with Bruce Grant, one of the founders of Engineers Without Borders.
-Lizzy
MEETING 10/14/08
Topics:
Where are we going:
Do we want to grow? And how? Growing small and slow seems to be the consensus.
Executive director discussion
Grant writing discussion
Possibly having paid positions.
Fund raising:
Fund Raiser 10/9:
1. We made $700 roughly.
Finances:
We have roughly $10,000
Need to make a schedule of allotted money for the year.
Project Updates:
Update on Pakistan:
1. We are on hold at the moment, but things seem to moving ahead.
Update on Liberia:
1. Need to Clarify how much each student receives, where remainder goes, how many students we are sponsoring.
2. Need to start writing grants.
Update on Nepal:
1. Possibly look into finding a Nepali NGO to partner with. **If we find potential partners perhaps I can go meet with them in Jan/Feb 09.
2. Need to send money for Jamling.
Tasks:
Justin:
1. Looking into 501(c)(3)
2. put together report of current financial status
Lizzy:
1. Fix website so that people can donate and link to TMF
2. Grant proposal
3. Get specifics for money in Liberia
4. Get money from Justin and send to Jamling.
Heidi:
1. Look into Executive Director duties and salaries
2. Contact Boulder Reach
3. Check with Emily on GEI Video
4. Work with Tsoler on connecting with Jah Vintage
5. Contact Sarah (new graphic designer) about Logo
Elizabeth:
1. Continue working with PDCN to push forward on Pakistan project
Summary of meeting notes with Bruce Grant of Engineers Without Borders:
1. We need to create an auditable database from day one. All the “big charity watchdogs” (online sites) that evaluate nonprofits will only start evaluating us from the time we start auditing ourselves. We have to pay an accountant to do this. We have to be licensed or approved by these watchdog groups in order to get foundations to pay any attention to us at all. We also have to be recommended by these groups if we’re going to have any chance of getting a grant.
a. Also, foundations will find us if we are on these charity watchdog sites.
b. Charity groups: Charitynavigator.com, charity.org, etc
2. We need to plan out a five-year plan now. Question: what do we want to look like in five years.
3. There is nothing wrong with paying ourselves to get going, but we have to be careful to not spend more than 20% of our income on overhead. We never want overhead to go over 20% of our income.
4. We need to do extensive networking as soon as possible.
a. We need to hit every female business owner on the Front Range. I have a list of the top 100 female-owned firms on the FR.
b. We need to get out and start talking with people in person, including legislators & politicians, businesswomen and men, and anyone else who might be able to help us.
c. We need to find an Angel donor.
d. Boulder Reach. We need to speak to these women.
e. We need to find out how to access charity lists and rolls.
f. Schedule a meeting with Heidi, the main fundraiser for EWB.
g. We need to get on Linked in and link to as many people as possible.
h. We need to find Top Tier people who can influence our success and tie us into other people.
i. We need to get in contact with as many other nonprofits as possible and learn from them.
j. Avoid faith-based orgs and government grants. The moment we take US government money, our Muslim students are at risk.
5. We need a marketing plan:
a. We need to write a quarterly email newsletter that we send out via constant contact
b. We need to figure out how to better market our nonprofit with Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.
c. Annual Giving Challenge. Parade Magazine. 700 nonprofits registered last year. Through viral marketing they wanted to find out how many people could give how many people 10 dollars.
10. We need to start a “Year-End Giving” letter writing campaign now, so that we get letters out to 500 people before December. 80% of individual donors give money around holidays.
a. These letters should be from each of our board members and should be personalized.
b. These letters should include a powerful story about one of the girls we have helped.
c. These letters should also include the founders’ story
11. We should not focus on grants until we make more contacts because we will not likely get grants unless we know people in high places.
12. We must emphasize transparency on our Web site as much as possible. Everyone wants to know that we’re honest. We need to report every dime on our site or blog.
13. We need to find more board members, and we need to make sure that every board member brings at least two of these three things to the board: Time, Talent and Treasure (or Work, Wealth and Wisdom).
14. We need to have a “prudent reserve.” Which means we should always make sure to have a certain amount of money in the bank. In this case, since we have just $10K, we should make sure to keep $2K always in the bank. We can increase this number once we raise more money. Money has to come in all the time if it’s going out.
15. We need to build a donor list asap.
16. We should never write a grant unless we have a high expectation of winning that money. You have to know people in high places to even be considered.
17. We need to refine our Bylaws
Interesting information on education in Liberia
PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID)
CONCEPT STAGE
Report No.: AB3636
Project Name Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women
in Liberia
Region AFRICA
Sector Vocational training (70%);Adult literacy/non-formal education
(30%)
Project ID P110571
Borrower(s) Project is a grant for GOVERNMENT OF LIBERIA
Implementing Agency Will depend on final design of the program
Environment Category []A []B [X] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined)
Date PID Prepared January 30, 2008
Estimated Date of
Appraisal Authorization
Estimated Date of Board
Approval
December 31, 2008
1. Key development issues and rationale for Bank involvement
Liberia’s 14-year long war (1989-2003) debilitated the country’s human development capacity,
paralyzed markets, and left a generation of young people with little education and few skills.
Girls were particularly disadvantaged. In 2003, almost 60% of young girls and 40% of young
boys had no formal schooling (ILO/UNICEF 2005). Their disadvantage reflects long-standing
gender inequality in Liberian society. Preliminary findings from the DHS survey show that more
than 40% of women had no education, compared to less than 20% of men, while 23% of women
and 44% of men had some secondary schooling (DHS 2007).
While both adolescent girls and boys need to “catch up” quickly in terms of education and skills
training for productive employment in the short term – and broad-based economic growth in the
medium and long term – adolescent girls need additional policy and program efforts to achieve
better outcomes. As in many other post-conflict situations, emergency skills training and public
works programs in Liberia have targeted male youth ex-combatants, likely reinforcing rather
than reducing adolescent girls’ disadvantage. The few skills training programs for adolescent
girls, run largely by NGOs, have focused on traditional female skills (such as sewing, soap
production, tie-dying) for which there is little or no market demand. Unless there is an additional
effort specifically targeted to adolescent girls, Liberian policies developed within the PRS
exercise may overlook girls’ economic needs and potential economic contributions; with
subsequent costs for poverty reduction and economic growth.
The proposed project builds on the Bank’s comparative advantage in designing demand-driven
approaches to skills and entrepreneurship training and in conducting serious impact evaluations
of new initiatives. There have been few evaluations of youth-oriented training programs, and
none on programs targeted to young women and girls. The lessons that will be drawn from this
program can be used to change program design, scale up activities, or to replicate the program in
other settings.
2. Proposed objective(s)
The proposed development objective for the project is improved employability and incomes for
adolescent girls and young women in the Monrovia area, and development of a new model for
demand-driven training of youth in Liberia.
3. Preliminary description
The project proposes to provide skills training to adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-24)
in such a way as to increase their employability and place them in jobs or self-employment. The
target population will comprise adolescent girls in urban and peri-urban Monrovia. The need for
investments outside Monrovia will be decided once the results of the initial pilot phase have been
analyzed. The target population may be more narrowly defined, for example, to concentrate on
adolescent girls who have recently completed or are completing the Accelerated Learning
Program, or with a certain educational profile. Further targeting details remain to be determined.
Four government agencies have been identified as key partners and potential government
counterparts: Gender and Development, Youth and Sports, Education, and Labor. All will be
involved in project design and implementation, whether directly or indirectly. The choice of
government counterpart will depend, in part, on the final design of the program and will be
determined in the pre-appraisal mission.
The project design envisions the following four components:
Component 1: Job skill training for wage employment –The focus of this component will be on
providing relevant skills training to girls and young women to enable them to obtain paid
employment. Examples of areas of employment might include high-quality urban services (such
as telecommunications, administrative and secretarial services, equipment repair and contract
management, and the hospitality industry.
Component 2: Entrepreneurship training with linkages to micro-finance – The focus of this
component will be to provide young female entrepreneurs access to training and micro-credit
that will boost their productivity, competitiveness and access to markets. A key element of this
package will be training in business development services, which typically include business
planning, consultancy and advisory services, marketing assistance, technology development and
transfer, and links to finance and financial services.
Component 3: Institutional strengthening of counterpart ministry – The war, under-investment in
human and institutional capacity, and the lack of engagement with the international community
have taken their toll on local capacity for project implementation and financial management in
key ministries. As soon as a government agency is selected to execute this project, the formation
of a Project Implementing Unit will also begin. Institutional strengthening will be focused on
three areas: (i) basic introduction to World Bank operations and fiduciary issues; (ii)
procurement and financial management of World Bank operations; and, (iii) results-oriented
monitoring and evaluation systems.
Component 4: Impact evaluation – The focus of this component will be designing and carrying
out a rigorous impact evaluation framework for the initiative.
Representatives of private sector groups in Liberia have noted the great difficulty in finding
young employees with appropriate job skills, including both technical knowledge as well as what
arereferred to as “non-cognitive” skills, including the ability to show up for work on time,
interact creatively and positively with colleagues, and take initiative to solve problems.1 Given
the relatively slow pace of private-sector jobs growth relative to the high rate of unemployment
currently existing in Liberia, however, providing training only for wage employment would not
be prudent. Thus, the project contains training options for both wage employment and self-
employment (entrepreneurship). Adolescent girls and young women will be able to self-select
into the training option that best suites their needs and preferences.
Ideally, training should be provided for skills and occupations for which demand will be
expanding in coming years. The Ministry of Commerce (2007) predicts that growth will come
from all sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, natural resource extraction, and services. Radelet
(2007) notes that in other African post-conflict countries, output growth was initially most rapid
in the service sector, with agricultural growth rebounding strongly 3-5 years after the end of the
conflict. Growth in manufacturing was the slowest to rebound but the most robust in the
medium term.
The a priori identification of future high-growth sectors in which to conduct training, however, is
prohibitively risky. Instead, mechanisms will be built into the project to ensure that training is
done—thus avoiding a pitfall that has plagued previous training programs in Liberia and
elsewhere. Two mechanisms will be put in place to promote linkages to the demand side of the
labor market and hence maximize the probabilities of employment for graduates of training.
First, a private sector advisory council will be formed to advise training providers on which
employees will be needed in the short-term.2 Second, the institutions offering training for wage
employment will be hired under performance-based contracts: providers that are more
successful in placing their graduates in jobs will be given performance bonuses and will have
their contract renewed and expanded; those that are less successful may have their contracts
cancelled.3
Training will be delivered by training providers (which may be quasi-governmental, NGO or
private sector agencies) who will be invited to submit bids to provide services under this project.
The government institution in charge of execution of the project will select, on a competitive
basis and subject to Bank contracting rules, the providers who will deliver the training. Key
criteria for selection will include quality of training curriculum, track record of delivering
training, and documented demand for the skills that the training will impart. Training will stress
development of marketable skills. In addition, training curricula should address some of the
1
Interviews conducted during the identification mission.
2
As collaboration increases between the advisory council and the training providers over time, it is possible to
envision training providers entering into direct relationships with businesses to train for particular vacancies or
needs.
3
The project will also consider performance-based contracts for institutions providing business development
services and microcredit to entrepreneurs; it must be recognized, however, that measuring performance in this
component may be more difficultSome potential measures include: beginning a business within six months of
graduation and business surviving one year after graduation.
crucial barriers to the development of adolescent girls in Liberia, including early pregnancy and
endemic sexual violence and transactional sex.
4. Safeguard policies that might apply
[Guideline: Refer to section 5 of the PCN. Which safeguard policies might apply to the project
and in what ways? What actions might be needed during project preparation to assess
safeguard issues and prepare to mitigate them?]
No Safeguard policies apply.
5. Tentative financing
Source: ($m.)
Borrower 0
Gender Trust Funds 2.96
Total 2.96
6. Contact point
Contact: Andrew R. Morrison
Title: Lead Economist, PRMGE
Tel: (202) 458-5062
Fax: (202) 522-3237
Email: amorrison1@worldbank.org
CONCEPT STAGE
Report No.: AB3636
Project Name Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women
in Liberia
Region AFRICA
Sector Vocational training (70%);Adult literacy/non-formal education
(30%)
Project ID P110571
Borrower(s) Project is a grant for GOVERNMENT OF LIBERIA
Implementing Agency Will depend on final design of the program
Environment Category []A []B [X] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined)
Date PID Prepared January 30, 2008
Estimated Date of
Appraisal Authorization
Estimated Date of Board
Approval
December 31, 2008
1. Key development issues and rationale for Bank involvement
Liberia’s 14-year long war (1989-2003) debilitated the country’s human development capacity,
paralyzed markets, and left a generation of young people with little education and few skills.
Girls were particularly disadvantaged. In 2003, almost 60% of young girls and 40% of young
boys had no formal schooling (ILO/UNICEF 2005). Their disadvantage reflects long-standing
gender inequality in Liberian society. Preliminary findings from the DHS survey show that more
than 40% of women had no education, compared to less than 20% of men, while 23% of women
and 44% of men had some secondary schooling (DHS 2007).
While both adolescent girls and boys need to “catch up” quickly in terms of education and skills
training for productive employment in the short term – and broad-based economic growth in the
medium and long term – adolescent girls need additional policy and program efforts to achieve
better outcomes. As in many other post-conflict situations, emergency skills training and public
works programs in Liberia have targeted male youth ex-combatants, likely reinforcing rather
than reducing adolescent girls’ disadvantage. The few skills training programs for adolescent
girls, run largely by NGOs, have focused on traditional female skills (such as sewing, soap
production, tie-dying) for which there is little or no market demand. Unless there is an additional
effort specifically targeted to adolescent girls, Liberian policies developed within the PRS
exercise may overlook girls’ economic needs and potential economic contributions; with
subsequent costs for poverty reduction and economic growth.
The proposed project builds on the Bank’s comparative advantage in designing demand-driven
approaches to skills and entrepreneurship training and in conducting serious impact evaluations
of new initiatives. There have been few evaluations of youth-oriented training programs, and
none on programs targeted to young women and girls. The lessons that will be drawn from this
program can be used to change program design, scale up activities, or to replicate the program in
other settings.
2. Proposed objective(s)
The proposed development objective for the project is improved employability and incomes for
adolescent girls and young women in the Monrovia area, and development of a new model for
demand-driven training of youth in Liberia.
3. Preliminary description
The project proposes to provide skills training to adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-24)
in such a way as to increase their employability and place them in jobs or self-employment. The
target population will comprise adolescent girls in urban and peri-urban Monrovia. The need for
investments outside Monrovia will be decided once the results of the initial pilot phase have been
analyzed. The target population may be more narrowly defined, for example, to concentrate on
adolescent girls who have recently completed or are completing the Accelerated Learning
Program, or with a certain educational profile. Further targeting details remain to be determined.
Four government agencies have been identified as key partners and potential government
counterparts: Gender and Development, Youth and Sports, Education, and Labor. All will be
involved in project design and implementation, whether directly or indirectly. The choice of
government counterpart will depend, in part, on the final design of the program and will be
determined in the pre-appraisal mission.
The project design envisions the following four components:
Component 1: Job skill training for wage employment –The focus of this component will be on
providing relevant skills training to girls and young women to enable them to obtain paid
employment. Examples of areas of employment might include high-quality urban services (such
as telecommunications, administrative and secretarial services, equipment repair and contract
management, and the hospitality industry.
Component 2: Entrepreneurship training with linkages to micro-finance – The focus of this
component will be to provide young female entrepreneurs access to training and micro-credit
that will boost their productivity, competitiveness and access to markets. A key element of this
package will be training in business development services, which typically include business
planning, consultancy and advisory services, marketing assistance, technology development and
transfer, and links to finance and financial services.
Component 3: Institutional strengthening of counterpart ministry – The war, under-investment in
human and institutional capacity, and the lack of engagement with the international community
have taken their toll on local capacity for project implementation and financial management in
key ministries. As soon as a government agency is selected to execute this project, the formation
of a Project Implementing Unit will also begin. Institutional strengthening will be focused on
three areas: (i) basic introduction to World Bank operations and fiduciary issues; (ii)
procurement and financial management of World Bank operations; and, (iii) results-oriented
monitoring and evaluation systems.
Component 4: Impact evaluation – The focus of this component will be designing and carrying
out a rigorous impact evaluation framework for the initiative.
Representatives of private sector groups in Liberia have noted the great difficulty in finding
young employees with appropriate job skills, including both technical knowledge as well as what
arereferred to as “non-cognitive” skills, including the ability to show up for work on time,
interact creatively and positively with colleagues, and take initiative to solve problems.1 Given
the relatively slow pace of private-sector jobs growth relative to the high rate of unemployment
currently existing in Liberia, however, providing training only for wage employment would not
be prudent. Thus, the project contains training options for both wage employment and self-
employment (entrepreneurship). Adolescent girls and young women will be able to self-select
into the training option that best suites their needs and preferences.
Ideally, training should be provided for skills and occupations for which demand will be
expanding in coming years. The Ministry of Commerce (2007) predicts that growth will come
from all sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, natural resource extraction, and services. Radelet
(2007) notes that in other African post-conflict countries, output growth was initially most rapid
in the service sector, with agricultural growth rebounding strongly 3-5 years after the end of the
conflict. Growth in manufacturing was the slowest to rebound but the most robust in the
medium term.
The a priori identification of future high-growth sectors in which to conduct training, however, is
prohibitively risky. Instead, mechanisms will be built into the project to ensure that training is
done—thus avoiding a pitfall that has plagued previous training programs in Liberia and
elsewhere. Two mechanisms will be put in place to promote linkages to the demand side of the
labor market and hence maximize the probabilities of employment for graduates of training.
First, a private sector advisory council will be formed to advise training providers on which
employees will be needed in the short-term.2 Second, the institutions offering training for wage
employment will be hired under performance-based contracts: providers that are more
successful in placing their graduates in jobs will be given performance bonuses and will have
their contract renewed and expanded; those that are less successful may have their contracts
cancelled.3
Training will be delivered by training providers (which may be quasi-governmental, NGO or
private sector agencies) who will be invited to submit bids to provide services under this project.
The government institution in charge of execution of the project will select, on a competitive
basis and subject to Bank contracting rules, the providers who will deliver the training. Key
criteria for selection will include quality of training curriculum, track record of delivering
training, and documented demand for the skills that the training will impart. Training will stress
development of marketable skills. In addition, training curricula should address some of the
1
Interviews conducted during the identification mission.
2
As collaboration increases between the advisory council and the training providers over time, it is possible to
envision training providers entering into direct relationships with businesses to train for particular vacancies or
needs.
3
The project will also consider performance-based contracts for institutions providing business development
services and microcredit to entrepreneurs; it must be recognized, however, that measuring performance in this
component may be more difficultSome potential measures include: beginning a business within six months of
graduation and business surviving one year after graduation.
crucial barriers to the development of adolescent girls in Liberia, including early pregnancy and
endemic sexual violence and transactional sex.
4. Safeguard policies that might apply
[Guideline: Refer to section 5 of the PCN. Which safeguard policies might apply to the project
and in what ways? What actions might be needed during project preparation to assess
safeguard issues and prepare to mitigate them?]
No Safeguard policies apply.
5. Tentative financing
Source: ($m.)
Borrower 0
Gender Trust Funds 2.96
Total 2.96
6. Contact point
Contact: Andrew R. Morrison
Title: Lead Economist, PRMGE
Tel: (202) 458-5062
Fax: (202) 522-3237
Email: amorrison1@worldbank.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
