Community Action
Girls' Education Program
School children in Kenya.
© WWF-Canon / Martin HARVEY
In Kenya, school children living in the Kiunga Marine National Reserve are playing an active role in ensuring the survival of endangered sea turtles. Girls in Nepal are studying to become amchis, traditional healers who depend on regional medicinal plants to cure members of their community.
These projects, just a sampling of many more around the world, are made possible by WWF's Girls' Education Program. This program has revitalized girls' education in four WWF priority places: the Eastern Himalayas, Coastal East Africa, Madagascar's Spiny Forest, and the Philippines' Turtle Islands (part of the Coral Triangle region).
In these areas, women are often excluded from participating in community decisions about resource use. Concurrently, many studies around the world indicate that a sizeable percentage of young girls in developing nations do not continue with their education past primary school.
In response to this phenomenon, WWF's Girls’ Education Program assists in the education of girls through the completion of both primary and secondary school. Connecting to WWF's core mission of saving life on earth, the fund also initiates environmental education in each region, a crucial element for youths growing up in high-biodiversity regions of the world.
WWF provides basic education for underprivileged girls, while engaging them in environmental activities and lessons that teach them the importance of conservation to present and future generations. WWF-supported girls have become community and conservation leaders, teachers and health care professionals, and even continued on to college. They enjoy greater independence from their husbands and actively promote conservation ideals throughout their communities.
A great supporter of WWF's Girls' Education Program is World Women Work, a non-profit organization supporting conservation through the education and empowerment of women and their families.
