Girls’ Education Program Fact Sheet
Right now, approximately
129 million girls around theworld are not in school.
When you educate a girl, everythingchanges. Help Room to Read makechange possible by benefiting moregirls than ever before this year with
our Girls’ Education Program.

Girls’ Education: Flourishing Despite Obstacles
Our girls’ education and gender equality work is centered around keeping
girls successfully engaged in school and helping them develop thelife skills they need to gain agency over their own lives. We know thatwith a quality education and mentorship, girls can grow into fulfilled
women, reaching heights they never thought possible. Unfortunately, theCOVID-19 pandemic has disrupted schooling and significantly jeopardized
girls’ opportunities and futures.
Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to the influences of the
COVID-19 pandemic, as domestic responsibilities and financial hardships
affect women disproportionately. There is a heightened risk of girls
dropping out of school. Girls in precarious financial situations can fallvictim to child marriage, sex trafficking or other means of exploitation.
As families navigate unprecedented levels of stress, the risk of intrafamily
conflict and gender-based violence also increases, negatively affecting
girls’ self-confidence, well-being and ability to negotiate key life decisions.
Room to Read has found new approaches to delivering our Girls’
Education Program interventions. We have adjusted our model to reachgirls with remote mentoring and deliver life skills lessons through radio,
worksheets and videos. We have also increased our monitoring of girls
most at risk of dropping out and provided tailored guidance to parents.
These new ways of working have allowed us to reach more girls than everbefore in ways that meet their immediate needs. As schools reopen, weare continuing to use all available pathways, including traditional skillbuilding and mentoring sessions, as well as multimedia tools, to support
girls and help them choose their futures.

OUR RESULTS
More than 3 million girls have benefited from
our Girls’ Education Program since the onset of
the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, 95% of girls who remained in ourprogram advanced to the next grade.

More than 13,000 program participants have

graduated from secondary school since 2000.

More than 73% of 2020 program graduates

enrolled in further education or found workwithin the first year after graduation.

World Change Starts with Educated Children.®

Our Approach

4 Family, School and Community Engagement

Our Girls’ Education Program is designed to improvelearning and life outcomes, allowing girls to graduate
secondary school with the ability to think critically, rely onthemselves to meet day-to-day challenges and be primarydecision-makers. Our program includes the following corecomponents, which are provided based on local conditions,individual need and grade level:

Through our work with families, schools and communities,
we create environments that support girls’ success inschool and beyond. To engage these stakeholders, we holdcommunity meetings where parents and caretakers candiscuss challenges in their communities and the importanceof sending all of their children to school, not just the boys.
We also engage program alumnae, as they are valuable rolemodels for younger girls, and contribute to the program as
mentors and guest speakers.

1 Life Skills Education
Life skills are competencies — such as empathy, criticalthinking and self-efficacy — that girls need to make informed
decisions. When girls learn these skills and how to apply
them in their daily lives, they are better equipped to handle
challenges, from gender bias to finding time to study. Our
program creates opportunities to learn and practice life skills
through classes, workshops and extracurricular activities.
In 2020, we began disseminating life skills curriculum via
television and radio, and we will continue to expand ourcapabilities in remote learning methods in the years to come.

2 Mentorship
Essential to our program are our social mobilizers, local
women who are hired as mentors and work with girls andtheir families to ensure that girls stay in school, participate
in life skills activities and navigate the challenges ofadolescence with the ability to make their own life choices.
Since 2020, our social mobilizers have implemented remote
one-on-one mentoring, and delivered group mentoring via
direct messaging platforms.

3 Material Support
For some families, the cost of a school uniform or safe
transportation is prohibitive to sending their daughters toschool. We provide need-based material support for school
costs such as tuition fees, uniforms and exam preparation
services so parents don’t have to make the choice between
putting food on the table and investing in education. Since
the onset of the pandemic, we have also provided a range ofphysical materials, including worksheets and notebooks, that
support girls’ at-home learning during school closures.

Strong Government Partnerships
In addition to our core program work, our teams
collaborate with government officials at the local,
regional and national levels to promote girl-friendly
learning environments. Our government partnerships
ensure that our program is complementary to national
efforts, sustainable and nationally scalable.

INVEST WITH CONFIDENCE
Fiscal Excellence
Received Charity Navigator’s highest four-star rating forsound fiscal management 15 times since 2005.

Leader in Literacy
Received the 2014 U.S. Library of Congress Literacy Award, the2011 UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy and recognized
as a 2014 World's Children's Prize Honorary Laureate.
Received the 2020 David M. Rubenstein Special ResponseAward of the Library of Congress Literacy Awards Programfor responsiveness and outstanding work in addressing
challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social Innovator
Chosen as Twitter’s first Corporate Social Innovation partner
and three-time winner of the Skoll Foundation’s Award forSocial Entrepreneurship.
Have questions?
Contact us online at
info@roomtoread.org

Room to Read Global Offices: Colombo
Dhaka • Delhi • Ho Chi Minh City • Hong Kong
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York City • Pretoria • San Francisco • SingaporeSydney • Tokyo • Washington, DC • Zurich