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June 2006, Vol. 12, No. 2 Transitions to Adulthood
The transition from childhood to adulthood is often considered a time of growth in self-awareness, opportunities, and knowledge about the world. For girls in rural Egypt, however, this growth often does not occur. As girls reach adolescence, their lives become increasingly confined to the home, their opportunities limited to household chores, and their future prospects restricted to early marriage and childbearing. A comprehensive program in rural Upper Egypt, known as Ishraq (meaning “enlightenment”), has succeeded in expanding the horizons of adolescent girls, increasing their self-confidence and general knowledge as well as promoting their civic engagement.
Ishraq is a collaboration between the Population Council, Caritas, CEDPA (the Center for Development and Population Activities), Save the Children, and two Egyptian government agencies, the Ministry of Youth and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood. Out-of-school girls are among the most disadvantaged adolescents in rural Egypt. Compared with girls attending school, they are more likely to be engaged in poorly paid farm work, more likely to be married early, and at greater risk for malnutrition, early childbearing, and poor pregnancy outcomes. “Considering the many problems faced by adolescent girls deprived of schooling, we recommend programs that will teach them the information and skills that will expand their life choices,” says Martha Brady, researcher at the Population Council. “At the same time, we need to foster family and community support for new and expanded roles for girls.” In 2001, the partner organizations pooled their expertise to design and implement an intervention program to address the unmet needs of out-of-school adolescent girls in rural Upper Egypt. The pilot phase of Ishraq was launched in four rural villages of the Minya governorate in Upper Egypt, one of the country’s poorest regions. Targeting girls ages 13–15, Ishraq offered a series of interlocking opportunities: literacy classes, life skills training, community engagement, and sports, as well as a chance to take the government literacy exam and enter or reenter school. Program managers established safe public spaces—usually in youth centers—where girls could engage in independent activities and interact with others. They also worked to change community norms and beliefs about the capacities and roles of girls in society. Girls met four times a week for three-hour sessions in youth centers or schools in groups of about 25 members each. About 50 girls participated in each village and within the first year, as community enthusiasm grew, there were waiting lists of interested girls. Each activity was led by “promoters,” respected female high school graduates recruited from the local community and trained as teachers and mentors of participating girls. Promoters became the critical links between girls, their families, and the Ishraq managerial team—quelling the fears of hesitant parents on the one hand, and articulating and addressing girls’ cultural concerns on the other. Ishraq adapted Caritas’s Learn to Be Free literacy curriculum and CEDPA’s New Horizons life skills program. Learn to Be Free relies on active discussion between teachers and girls. This technique develops girls’ ability to articulate their thoughts while increasing their knowledge of Arabic, math, and other topics. The New Horizons curriculum teaches life skills such as communication, negotiation, decisionmaking, and critical thinking, and provides information on reproductive health. It also teaches girls about their rights. The sports component of Ishraq began with locally familiar games to introduce girls to the benefits of sports. As the program progressed, exercises and kicking of soccer balls were added to help girls feel more comfortable with their bodies. Finally, Ishraq collaborated with the International Table Tennis Federation to include table tennis. Relatively easy and inexpensive to organize and play, table tennis has been favorably received by girls and their families. Population Council researchers used baseline and endline surveys to measure the impact of the program by comparing changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior among adolescent girls. The surveys were conducted before and after the intervention in the four program areas and in two other villages where no program activities took place, and which served as experimental controls. Ninety-two percent of Ishraq participants who took the government literacy exam passed. Sixty-six percent of girls who completed the program have entered the formal school system, compared with 4 percent of girls who did not complete the program. (In the second round of Ishraq, the entry age will be lowered to 11 years, increasing the possibility that a higher proportion of girls who pass the exam will be young enough to enter secondary school.) Girls who participated fully in Ishraq were significantly less likely than other girls to say they intend to subject their future daughters to female genital cutting, a common traditional practice in Egypt (see graph).
The program made great strides in fostering civic engagement. The Ishraq team worked with government officials to issue the Ishraq girls public identification cards. Additionally, the success of the program led villages to designate times for youth centers to be “girls-only,” allowing graduates of the program to continue to meet and learn. Ishraq graduates and promoters have gone on to participate in and lead a number of community development activities. Ishraq is moving from the innovative pilot phase described here to a larger program with the potential to change the lives of thousands of girls throughout Upper Egypt. Several new villages in Minya and Beni Suef have been selected to participate in the Ishraq program. Expanding the program, however, is unlikely to follow the typical path of scaling up. “We are ready to learn from the challenges of expanding this program, which is designed to serve poor, unschooled adolescent girls who have few advocates in seats of power and few opportunities to articulate demands on their own behalf,” says Ragui Assaad, the Population Council’s regional director for West Asia and North Africa. SourceBrady, Martha, Ragui Assaad, Barbara Ibrahim, Abeer Salem, Rania Salem, Nadia Zibani, and Alyce Abdalla. 2006. “Providing new opportunities to adolescent girls in socially conservative settings: The Ishraq program in rural Upper Egypt.” New York: Population Council. (PDF) (PDF in Arabic)
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