PROJECT
Ishraq: An Innovative Program for Girls in Egypt

In rural Upper Egypt, girls lack access to formal learning opportunities, have restricted mobility and limited social networks, and are susceptible to early or forced marriage.

In an effort to address these issues, a holistic package of interventions for out-of-school adolescent girls was designed and launched in August 2001. Called Ishraq, the program was initiated by the Population Council and Save the Children/USA in partnership with the Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) and Caritas Egypt in the villages of El-Minya in northern Egypt.

Ishraq's primary target group is adolescent girls ages 13–15 who are currently out of school. To date, hundreds of girls have been enrolled in the program.

The program consists of learning and recreational modules. The latter use sports to develop girls' leadership and decisionmaking skills. Ishraq also engages parents, adolescent boys, and community leaders and works with schools and youth centers to provide a sheltered environment for girls.

How it works
Ishraq collaborators Caritas Egypt and CEDPA provide schooling and other life skills to girls enrolled in the program. Caritas Egypt's approach to literacy emphasizes active learning centered on dialogue. In the Learn to Be Free curriculum, teachers introduce an issue by presenting a song, video, or picture to stimulate a discussion. Students explore the topic, define problems, suggest solutions, and then learn to spell and write related words. The core curriculum focuses on Arabic and mathematics. Additional subject areas include learning about health and the environment as well as developing income-generating skills.

CEDPA also emphasizes participatory and active learning through New Horizons, an awareness-raising program tailored for illiterate girls ages 9–25. The curriculum focuses on life skills and covers identity, family, and community; girls' rights and duties; reproductive health; nutrition; and the environment. The reproductive health component covers topics such as adolescence, violence, marriage, maternal health, and pregnancy. Ishraq teachers are called promoters. They are educated girls from participating villages nominated by local community leaders. Classes are held four days per week, for three hours each day. The classes accommodate the girls' schedules, according to arrangements made with the local institutions hosting program activities.

On two of the four days, girls don training suits and gather in an enclosed playing field to participate in sports. The first phase of recreational activities served as a means for understanding the needs and abilities of the girls. Those observations formed the basis for designing a new, locally developed sports curriculum, launched in February 2002. The new curriculum teaches girls the basic rules and skills of four different sports: volleyball, soccer, basketball, and handball. After all four units have been introduced, girls select one sport to practice and compete in during the remainder of the program.

Impact assessment design
As one of the initiators of the Ishraq program, the Population Council developed a study design that included rigorous impact assessment. A baseline survey of girls between the ages of 13 and 15 in the four intervention villages and two matched control sites was fielded before the launch of Ishraq. Midline data on participants were collected in 2003, followed by an endline survey of all the girls in February 2004. The quantitative work was complemented by qualitative research, mostly on the concerns and feelings of parents and boys.

Extensive data from the quantitative research shows the effect of Ishraq on the girls’ educational level, the advantages of an integrated approach, and significant changes in attitudes toward marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, and family roles. The results of this study show that for illiterate girls on the verge of entering adulthood, intensive programs can create measurable change.

Participants' profile
Ishraq staff members conducted a baseline study of all out-of-school girls in the participating villages before the project began. Underprivileged girls in rural El-Minya lead busy lives, loaded down with chores and field work. They spend more than half of their waking time in paid or unpaid chores, inside or outside of their home. They mostly toil in agricultural activities or tending livestock, although a very few are involved in trade or food processing. The vast majority of girls who work do so to help their parents and their families.

While they appear to spend much of their time laboring, the girls are not without opportunities for enjoying themselves. Recreation and socializing with relatives, friends, and neighbors takes up more than one-quarter of the day. Recreation mainly takes the form of watching television and listening to radio and cassette players. Researchers found a diversity of traditional popular games played by village girls. These involve a range of activities including running, jumping, and singing. Some popular games require considerable dexterity and speed.

Overall, girls in the targeted communities do not play sports, but they expressed enthusiasm and willingness to participate in a sports program if offered in their village. Girls hold an overall impression, however, that their community disapproves of adolescent girls participating in sports.

Circumcision. Variation in female circumcision practices was found among the six study villages. In two of the villages, the number of circumcised girls ages 13–15 is less than expected based on previous research. This seems to be the result of active awareness-raising campaigns being conducted in one of the two villages to eradicate the practice. Girls in one of the communities with low incidence expressed negative attitudes toward female circumcision. In the other village with low prevalence, however, the local custom is to circumcise girls a few days prior to their wedding. In all villages, it was reported that local doctors are becoming more involved in performing circumcisions than they had in the past. (Previously the procedure was done by traditional midwives or other people who specialize in circumcisions.)

Basic knowledge and skills. The study team found that the level of girls' basic knowledge of the society they live in is low and reflects a limited connectedness to the world outside the village boundaries. Some girls could not identify where the Egyptian pyramids are located, and some did not know what the pyramids are. The calculation skills of the girls are far more developed than their reading skills, which were found to be very poor. It is likely that the daily lives of these adolescents have given them occasion and motivation to learn basic math, though they have had no comparable opportunity to learn reading. At the same time, girls expressed strong positive attitudes about learning.

Safe spaces for girls. Safe and supportive environments are regarded as a prerequisite for the program to have a real effect on its beneficiaries. This is especially true for girls, who historically have been excluded, whether intentionally or unintentionally, from public spaces. The Egyptian Ministries of Education and Youth responded to Ishraq's need for safe space by offering two local schools and two youth centers as project venues. Once a suitable space was established in each of the four villages, Ishraq's team of promoters conducted home visits to invite girls to participate. The number of girls showing interest in participating in Ishraq exceeded the program's capacity, which is fifty girls per village. Those who could not be accommodated were put on a waiting list and given priority if spaces became available.

Progress
In 2002 several key components of the adolescent girls’ intervention were completed, and new project components for girls, boys, and parents were launched. Enrolled girls completed Phase 1 of the literacy program, graduated from the New Horizons life skills program in November 2002, and commenced Phase 2. In keeping with a “best practices” approach of engaging community gatekeepers in the program, selected members of each village were trained as facilitators to lead and teach new program initiatives.

Specifically, the newly trained community members began implementing programs targeted at adolescent boys and parents. The boys’ program is using the New Visions life skills and reproductive health curriculum developed by CEDPA.

In February 2004 parents, community leaders, and government officials attended a graduation ceremony for the first 200 girls to complete the Ishraq program.

The Population Council has evaluated Ishraq, and the results show that the program has a positive impact on girls’ literacy levels, general knowledge, and participation in sports. In addition, girls who have participated in Ishraq are opposed to early marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, and other harmful practices. The program offered critical training, space, and skills to illiterate adolescent girls at risk of marrying early into a life of restricted opportunities.

Following the success of the pilot phase, the partners joined with the Egyptian Ministry of Youth and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood to work toward expanding the program to other out-of-school girls in rural Egypt. Following the technical advisory group meeting and a scale-up workshop, the Ishraq partnership is moving forward to secure funding and support for expansion.

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Population Council researchers

Martha Brady, Ragui Assaad, Abeer Salem, Nadia Zibani

Non-Council collaborators

Caritas

Centre for Development and Population Activities

Ministry of Youth (Supreme Council for Youth)

National Council for Childhood and Motherhood

Save the Children

Donors

The Dickler Family Foundation

The Ford Foundation/Egypt

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Nike Foundation

UK Department for International Development

United Nations Children's Fund/Egypt

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