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school attendance  |  gender disparity  |  school resources

Education

Ensuring that every orphaned child has access to a quality education is a vital step toward restoring human rights to vulnerable youth and equipping them with the tools to overcome poverty and pursue healthy and productive lives. IBECOME is committed to long-term investments in education as one of its most promising and important development strategies.

IBECOME's model promotes the entire restructuring of traditional orphanages to become progressive orphanage academies: community-based centers of rich learning, diverse resources, and strategic training for vulnerable youth that will close the opportunity gap that traditionally falls along socio-economic, geographic, and gender lines.

Built into our enriched curricula and academy programming is a school culture that fosters gender equality, social and environmental responsibility, and local vision for youth-led community development solutions. IBECOME orphanage academies serve as the operating center for most IBECOME partner center programs.

School Attendance

Problem

  • UNICEF reported that in 2007 over 93 million primary school children living in developing countries were out of school, and that the strongest determinant of school attendance in these regions is household wealth. This strong correlation between educational opportunity and poverty rates provides cutting insights into the obstacles facing orphaned and vulnerable children in developing countries.

Solution

  • Orphanage academies: the transformation of a pre-existing institution into a center of learning and training for society’s most disadvantaged children.

    Hananasif Academy in Mkuranga, Tanzania is our pilot academy program. Hananasif Academy is a new boarding school located on a rural stretch of 300 acres of land approximately 50km southeast of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Through a network of volunteers and staff, IBECOME is working collaboratively with local staff and teachers to maximize the academy’s impact on its students. Learn more . . .


Gender Disparity

Problem

  • Female enrollment in university level education falls by over 50% from a nearly 1-1 male-to-female ratio in primary and secondary education, leaving a 2-1 ratio of male-to-female students in college/university enrollment. This sharp statistical disparity plainly indicates a national problem in female retention at the tertiary level of enrollment.

Solution

  • IBECOME Educational Scholarships for Girls: IBECOME offers educational scholarships for girls to attend colleges and universities after completing secondary schooling, providing opportunities to pursue higher education and positioning young women to break the trends of gender disparities wordwide.
  • IBECOME Study Abroad Program: IBECOME has launched an international study abroad program in which one female and one male student have the opportunity to study in the U.S. for one academic school year. 100% of children surveyed at Hananasif Academy said that this opportunity generated tremendous motivation to excel in their studies and demonstrate leadership and citizenship in school and among their peers.

School Resources

Problem

  • There is a severe lack of both text and electronic resources for students and teachers in the classroom, as well as rigorous teacher training programs. Only 3 in every 100 people have access to Internet in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Solution

  • IBECOME is currently conducting local research on educational resources available to vulnerable youth so that we can most effectively target the high priority needs of our host countries.
  • School Enrichment: Join students and schools around the world who are collecting electronic resources, recently published textbooks, and relevant course curricula to enrich our school resources, enhance student learning, and develop our on-campus libraries.
  • IT Training Infrastructure: Donate computers, up-to-date educational software, or your time and teaching skills by coming on site to teach an IT course to our students.
  • Economically and Environmentally Sustainable Power Sources for Academy Centers: Help us fund solar power at Hananasif Academy, currently dependent on a generator for power – a costly and inconsistent source of power, insufficient for running our computer lab.