Friends of FAWE

The Friends of FAWE Forum for African Women Educationalists is the US based affiliate of FAWE headquartered in New York City and Washington DC. It was started in the fall of 2010 for the purpose of raising awareness and funding for the work of FAWE in their efforts to SAVE, EDUCATE and TRANSFORM the lives of young girls across Sub-Saharan Africa.

For more information about FAWE
Forum for African Women Educationalists
go to www.fawe.org
 

FAWE VISION

A world in which gender disparities in education are eliminated and all African girls access education, perform well and complete their studies.

FAWE MISSION

To promote gender equity and equality in education in Africa by fostering positive policies, practices and attitudes towards girls’ education.

FAWE History

In 1992, five visionary African women Ministers of Education, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, established FAWE to advocate for girls’ education across Africa. FAWE’s mission was to address the significant unmet need that an estimated 24 million school-age girls were out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa. Access to education is a fundamental human right yet millions of children worldwide are deprived of education and are illiterate due to poverty, cultural, religious, physiological or demographic factors.

FAWE founders believed in the importance of educating girls not only because of the direct benefits to the individual but also because of the extensive indirect benefits for society and the community as a whole. Research shows that educating girls reduces fertility rates, reduces child and infant mortality rates, improves child nutrition and health, increases economic productivity and growth, and protects girls from abuse, exploitation and HIV/AIDS. FAWE saves, educates, and transforms the lives of these girls and in turn brings about social-economic and political change in communities across the continent.

Over the last two decades, FAWE expanded its programs and developed a strong geographic presence across the continent, working in 34 African countries. Today, FAWE is the leading non-governmental organization in Africa that directly addresses issues relating to girls’ education. It is estimated that through FAWE’s efforts, 12 million girls and women have been able to access education and improve their standard of economic and social well-being. FAWE achieved this deep and broad impact on a modest budget: FAWE’s cost per beneficiary is an estimated US$1 per person.

FAWE improves access to education as well as quality of education, inspiring girls to stay in school and learn. FAWE’s current programs include: 1) addressing constraints to access, retention and performance in the educational process; 2) undertaking advocacy to raise awareness and influence policymaking; 3) developing gender-responsive models for training teachers, improving learning processes and environments, and empowering girls; and 4) facilitating the replication and mainstreaming of FAWE’s best practices.

As a result of FAWE’s advocacy many governments have and continue to adopt gender positive policies such as free primary education, re-entry policies for adolescent mothers, scholarships for needy girls, gender-responsive pedagogy and appointment of more female teachers.

Extensive collaboration, teamwork and partnerships are integral to FAWE’s success. FAWE provides a model for working directly with governments and policymakers to obtain large-scale impact. FAWE is also a model of pan-African collaboration. FAWE’s wide geographic presence provides a unique forum to leverage economies of scale and share knowledge, especially among African governments and Ministries of Education.

In the next few years, FAWE will continue furthering the compelling vision that led to its creation by consolidating and scaling up its programs, while tackling other barriers to African girls’ education. The organization is paying increased attention to the economic empowerment of girls living in vulnerable situations through skills training in order to equip them with competencies needed to access and compete in the labor market.

FAWE’s work and impact are recognized by its beneficiaries and by African Ministries of Education; its many financial and strategic partners which include multilateral organizations such UNICEF, UNGEI, UNESCO and the World Bank; bilateral organizations such as those of the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, the United States, Finland and Ireland; International NGOs such as Plan International; and foundations such as Rockefeller, Ford and Packard and the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2008, FAWE received the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership, which recognizes extraordinary leadership in the nonprofit sector globally.

FAWE SUPPORTERS

Funding Partners as of December 2010

The Rockefeller Foundation
Norad
Netherlands – Ministry of Foreign Affairs
World Bank (through ADEA Secretariat)
Finland Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ireland Ministry of Foreign Affairs
UNICEP ESARO
Ford Foundation
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
UNGEI Secretariat

Funding partners as of December 2010 (National Chapters):

Strategic partners as at December 2010:

Plan International
Clinton Global Initiative
African Union
ADEA
ASHEWA
CONFEMEN
Global Campaign for Education
International Day of the African Child
Addis Ababa University Institute for Gender Studies – Ethiopia
Kenyatta University – Kenya
University of Witwatersrand – South Africa
SACMEQ
Busitema University – Uganda
Cambridge University Centre for Commonwealth Education
Université Cheikh Anta Diop Laboratoire Genre & Recherche Scientifique – Senegal
University of Yaounde I – Cameroon
University of Comoros
University of Swaziland
Copperbelt University – Zambia
The Covenant University, Nigeria
University of Malawi
Kigali Institute of Education Centre for Gender, Culture and Development Studies – Rwanda
University of Maryland, USA

FRIENDS of FAWE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chairman:
Damtew Teferra

Treasurer:
Faiq Sadiq

Secretary:
Codou Diaw

Members:
Aster Heregot
Dzingai Mutumbuka
Simone de Comarmond
Ted Gregory
Vivian Lowery Derrick