According to UNESCO, “of all regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion. Over one-fifth of children between the ages of about 6 and 11 are out of school, followed by one-third of youth between the ages of about 12 and 14. According to UIS data, almost 60% of youth between the ages of about 15 and 17 are not in school.
Without urgent action, the situation will likely get worse as the region faces a rising demand for education due to a still-growing school-age population.”
Why Education?
Our vision is to alleviate poverty in under-served rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa by providing quality basic educational opportunities that empower children and youths to have a chance at rising above poverty to become self-reliant. weCare Africa has developed several educational programs which cater to disadvantaged children including one that is specially tailored to promote the importance of educating the girl child.
As global infant mortality continues to drop, developing countries are being faced with a demographic “youth bulge.” Which means more children are making it to school age and therefore, additional educational resources must be provided to keep the children positively engaged and ultimately, prepare them to be useful to society. Educated children will lead to employed youths which will ultimately result in regional economic growth. When the reverse is the case, that is, when children are left uneducated and employable youth are unemployed, the economy suffers and they become easily influenced by negative forces that threaten national and global security. We are therefore relentless in our strive to educate and empower at-risk youths.
Educational programs for children and adults alike have the ability to improve all aspects of life in rural communities. We have designed educational programs that target the core areas of deficiency in rural education:
– Clean Water for Schools: Our clean water project ensures that students in disadvantaged rural communities have access to clean water. Drinking of contaminated water leads to cholera, dysentery, and severe forms or diarrhea amongst many other diseases. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) more than 4% of all deaths world-wide are attributed to diarrhea. Also, Data has shown that an estimated 2.2 million people die yearly as a result of diarrhea caused by dirty drinking water, many of whom are children in developing countries. Therefore, our goal is to improve access to clean water by installing potable water/borehole systems in schools without access to clean drinking water. Through this initiative, weCare Africa aims to improve the health and hygiene of the school age children in impoverished rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa.
– School Rehabilitation: Our school rehabilitation program focuses on construction of modern sanitary facilities in schools lacking such and renovation of dilapidated school buildings many of which have suffered from decaying environmental conditions such as leaks, peeling paint, asbestos, crumbling plaster, poor lighting, inadequate ventilation, and other dangers that pose serious threat to the health, well-being, safety, and academic success of students in rural sub-Saharan African communities. Some of these schools are in danger of collapsing due to poor foundations, lack of maintenance and overcrowding. Of particular concern is the fact that the academic performance of students and their concentration during class sessions are negatively impacted on a daily basis. Through our school rehab program, weCare Africa aims to create safer learning environments, protect the health and morale of students and staff members, as well as donate learning equipment and other school supplies to ensure that students enjoy an optimum experience.
– Health Education: Through this program weCare Africa will encourage every school we visit or implement a project at to include comprehensive health education as an integral part of their academic curriculum if such is lacking. We seek to promote health education with focus on the importance of basic hygiene, stress factors that prevent illnesses, as well as those that promote or damage health. Students will be taught the importance of adopting good health behaviors and exposed to various areas of health including nutrition, general disease and STD prevention, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse prevention, and safety. The goal of this program is to equip children with lifelong health skills, create positive attitudes toward personal well-being and promote healthy behavior amongst children in rural communities. As part of our health education initiative, we offer a special program for girls which focuses on helping girls understand their evolving bodies. Girls are taught how to manage their health and hygiene to prevent interruption of their education.
– Girls’ Education: Education is one of the most critical areas for empowering the girl child. Sadly, it is also one of the areas that show the clearest evidence of discrimination against girls and women. Research has shown that, among school age children not attending school, there are twice as many girls when compared to boys. Around the world, it is well known that when girls are educated, the benefits are reaped by families and the community alike. weCare Africa aims to promote girls’ education by conducting community outreach programs where local families and community leaders are educated on the importance of educating the girl child.
– Scholarship Program: Our scholarship program is intended to support promising students, especially girls and orphans with the cost of attending universities and colleges. weCare Africa aims to cover tuition, books, room and board to encourage marginalized children from rural communities to achieve tertiary education. We are guided by the knowledge that an educated girl/woman is a strong agent of economic change for her community. In addition, research has shown that every extra year of schooling for girls reduces unplanned pregnancies and children of an educated mother are more likely to survive.
– Adult Education: weCare Africa aims to provide basic adult literacy and numeracy programs especially for women, to empower small business owners such as local vendors and farmers to become more independent, able to confidently make business decisions and ultimately, grow their businesses. Through these programs, women will be taught numeracy classes in their native languages and literacy programs will be taught in the country’s main language to enable local women be more comfortable with reaching out for resources beyond their local communities.
– Adult Education: weCare Africa aims to provide basic adult literacy and numeracy programs especially for women, to empower small business owners such as local vendors and farmers to become more independent, able to confidently make business decisions and ultimately, grow their businesses. Through these programs, women will be taught numeracy classes in their native languages and literacy programs will be taught in the country’s main language to enable local women be more comfortable with reaching out for resources beyond their local communities.
Our Approach
Our ultimate goal is to contribute to the battle against extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and education is our weapon of choice. Here’s how we generally structure our primary approach towards achieving this:
Our field officers identify disadvantaged schools in impoverished communities -> We strategize and develop projects/programs tailored to address the particular needs of such schools -> We engage with local leaders to discuss the goals of a target project -> We execute the project and put in place a system to monitor the effectiveness of each project for a period of 3-5 years post project completion
Because we are deeply passionate about empowering as many children as possible, we have created a secondary approach that invites individuals, groups and corporations to partner with us. Through this approach, we work with partners (weCarers) using a structure where:
Our partners adopt a project/program -> We strategize and develop the selected project -> We engage with local leaders to discuss the goals of the selected project -> We execute the selected project and put in place a system to monitor the effectiveness of each project for a period of 3-5 years post project completion -> We give project credit to our partners and foster a lasting relationship to encourage repeat collaborations
To learn more about how you can partner with us please click here.
“Why Education” Image source: www.asanteafrica.org
