Improving
girls' access to education has been on the mainstream development agenda for
some time, largely because of the poverty reduction potential that education
offers through increasing access to economic opportunity. The long-term
positive effects of education for the individual, family and wider society have
also been recognised. As a study by the International Center for Research on Women confirms,
"women are more likely to control their own destinies and effect change in
their own communities when they have higher levels of education".
In addition, education is often seen as one
of the main pathways to achieving another key development goal: girls' and
women's empowerment. As the International Conference on Population and
Development programme of
action states: "Education is one of the most important means of
empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to
participate fully in the development process."
However,
experience has shown that the relationship between education and empowerment is
not as simple as it may first appear; while education is undoubtedly a key element
contributing to empowerment, the two do not necessarily go hand in hand.
Many educational programmes will focus on
students' acquisition of formal knowledge and training, and will often equip
them with the technical skills necessary to take up paid employment in a
specific sector. For adolescent girls, this
can mean being formally trained in an activity traditionally seen as
"women's work", such as sewing, the small-scale production and
commercialisation of food products, artisanal production or secretarial skills
for the more literate.
While it is
often important that girls receive this vocational training as part of their
education, a more holistic approach that places a strong emphasis on enabling
girls to develop a wider awareness of themselves and the external context in
which they live is also vital. Having the opportunity to develop an awareness of
their own social situation, as well as to gain confidence and self-esteem,
means not only that girls are in a better position to deal with the multiple
challenges that entry into the labour market can pose, but also are
increasingly empowered to define and act upon their ambitions.
The importance of developing girls' ability
to reflect on their own reality, to develop self-awareness and to build
self-esteem has been recognised by the Burkina Faso branch of the
Forum for African Women Educationalists
(Fawe), an organisation that works to promote gender equality and education
across Africa. One of the projects run
by Fawe Burkina in Ouagadougou, the resource and training centre, offers
training to adolescent girls from underprivileged backgrounds, who generally
have a low level of formal education.
At the
centre the girls primarily receive training in income-generating activities
such as sewing, weaving and soap-making, as well as in non-traditional
activities such as plumbing and mechanics. To complement this, they also
participate in life skills and awareness-raising workshops, which include
children's and women's rights, as well as on reproductive health and –
importantly for their chances of being engaged in remunerated activity – basic
maths and French language courses.
Earlier this
year the manager of the centre, Absétou Lamizana, decided to further expand the
life-skills element of the training programme, in response to an increasing
recognition of the importance of self-esteem for the personal and professional
development of the trainees. She explained: "Lack of ambition, of
self-confidence and self-esteem are challenges faced by the girls, and are
linked to a deeply-rooted culture of gender inequality and traditional
attitudes towards the role of girls and women. This creates an atmosphere in
which they have very little confidence in themselves and underestimate their
capacities."
A partnership was developed with another
local NGO, Génération Butterfly,
which designed a workshop series tailored to the situation of the girls
enrolled at the centre. Ibrahim Kaboré, the director of Génération Butterfly,
noted that the trainees are also deeply affected by their less privileged
socio-economic background, viewing themselves as inferior to other adolescents
of their age, which results in an inability to value themselves and the
products of their work. "Our self-esteem workshops help them to free
themselves from their past and think more about what they are going to do today
so that tomorrow can be better. Somebody who does not have confidence in
themselves cannot easily act to improve their future," he said.
During the
workshops another important element was revealed, which can be seen as a
misunderstanding about the role of NGOs vis-à-vis the lives of adolescents from
less privileged backgrounds. "It became clear that those living in poverty
had become accustomed to a culture of receiving free services, which meant that
the girls sometimes engaged in training because they felt it was expected of
them, rather than because they were personally motivated to change their lives
by learning professional skills. They saw their enrolment at the centre as a
consequence of being poor, and this was also damaging to their
self-esteem."
It is not
easy to overcome the effects of a lifetime of poverty and marginalisation.
Despite this, Fawe Burkina are committed to working to further develop holistic
"life skills" training, which aims to ensure that on completion of
the programme trainees are in a stronger position to make informed choices
about their lives and act on previously unthinkable ambitions.
While it is
important not to lose sight of the huge challenges many will face while trying
to become engaged in economic activity, leaving the centre with a reinforced
self-belief means they have already overcome a huge hurdle. As a result, they
will be better able to control their own destinies and participate more
meaningfully in development – an aspiration for the adolescent girls leaving
the centre and development practitioners alike, and which is firmly rooted in
the notion of empowerment.
Lamizana
summed up this approach: "In our view, education must be reinforced by the
development of self-esteem to lift girls from the status of inferiority in
which society confines them. Similarly, without education and without
self-esteem there cannot be empowerment. All of these elements go
together."
Abigail Hunt was gender adviser at the
Secrétariat
permanent des organisations non gouvernementales, an umbrella body of national and
international NGOs working in Burkina Faso.