Project Title: Girls Education Program (GEP): Girls Health and Safety Training

Location: Bangladesh

Grant Amount: $50,000

Grantee Website: www.speakupforthepoor.org

Areas of Impact: Economic Sustainability, Education & Literacy, Gender Equality, Health

Mission of Speak Up for the Poor
Speak Up for the Poor’s mission is to create a new reality for girls in poverty.

Summary
The Girls Education Program helps girls from impoverished families who are vulnerable to child marriage and child trafficking to stay in school all the way through college graduation. This both changes the trajectory of those girls’ and young women’s lives, and also elevates the status of girls and women in the culture, as for the first time people see examples of girls and women who are staying in school through higher education, and becoming educated professionals. Grant funding from Together Women Rise will fund health and safety trainings and resources throughout 2024, for girls and young women in Speak Up's GEP.

Why We Love This
Speak Up For the Poor was the February 2021 featured grantee. Together Women Rise’s grant was $26,189. At that time Speak Up had a total of 121 young women in college, nursing school, or other higher education through the Girls Education Program. Today, they have 41 college and nursing school graduates, and 235 other young women currently studying in college, nursing school, and other higher education. Without the intervention of the GEP, in all probability none or very few of these young women would have even finished high school before being dropped out of school for an early marriage -- much less go on to college or graduate from college -- since all of them are from impoverished families, with uneducated parents, in communities with very high rates of child marriage for girls. (Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world for girls under age 15.) So, the GEP has been very successful the past few years, and is making a tremendous difference for these girls and young women.