Will Educate Girls for Food: A Plan to Fight Poverty and Illiteracy Is Helping Egypt

[eridani]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/07/22/poverty-egypt?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-07-22

The United Nations World Food Programme has been providing food to kids in Egyptian schools since 1968, but in April they began to focus their efforts on children who are most at risk of entering the labor market. In some of the poorest and most remote areas of the country, a high-energy date bar awaits each student who makes it to class. More school, more food.

The date bar students get each day in the classroom provides 25 percent of their daily nutritional needs. Students who attend 80 percent of school days per month take home rations for their families, including 10 kilograms of rice and one liter of oil. Since April, nearly 24,000 children have been given food aid in this four-year, $65 million project funded by the European Union. The goal is to reach 100,000 children in Egypt’s poorest areas.
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“In those rural and remote areas, girls' education is not a priority for the families,” explained Amina Al Korey, communications officer for the WFP in Egypt. Public schools are far away, and if they are reachable by foot, the walk is seen as unsafe for girls.

Safety may be a concern, but patriarchal values also play a role.

“The concept they have is the girl is going to get married and stay home, so if they need to get one of their children educated, they’re going to focus on the boys,” Al Korey said. “With our project, we focus on the girls because we feel we are their chance to get an education.”

[ismnotwasm]

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