World Wildlife Fund

© WWF-Canon/Martin Harvey

Every day, all over the world, women make countless choices that affect the environment. In their hands lie many decisions about the use of community resources - water for the household, land for agriculture, wood for heating and cooking, plants and animals for food and sale.

Yet women often lack the education to make responsible conservation decisions and are denied the resources and opportunities to control their own economic destinies. Without intervention, the cycle of poverty and inequality is repeated from mother to daughter.

Recognizing the different roles of women and men in natural resource management, WWF works with both groups to enhance their stewardship of the environment and improve livelihoods. Successful women's programs include small business development, access to health services like family planning and maternal and child health, efficient and sustainable agriculture techniques and literacy programs.

WWF empowers women and girls - building a future where human needs are met in harmony with nature.

• Today's Girls - Tomorrow's Leaders
• Biogas is Better - Jari Leads the Way
• Meet Shushma and Zahra

WWF scholars on Mafia Island, Tanzania, share their education experiences with the WWF Program Manager. Behind them sit one of their teachers and the WWF-Mafia Environmental Education Program Coordinator.
© WWF / Cara Honzak

Today's Girls - Tomorrow's Leaders 
WWF established the Girls Education Program in 1997 to educate girls from disadvantaged families in key areas of the Eastern Himalayas, Coastal East Africa, Madagascar and the Coral Triangle. We chose these places because of their high population growth and low literacy for girls and women.

There are only three secondary schools on Tanzania's Mafia Island, meaning that girls make a long and sometimes dangerous commute from remote fishing villages. Gender-separated facilities are a necessity in this traditional Muslim area. Without them, parents are inclined to keep their daughters at home.

With support from WWF, 33 girls are being provided with tuition, payment of examination fees, supplementary food and renovation of their study and dining rooms. Their formal education is complemented by a hands-on approach to marine conservation through field trips, development of marine conservation information displays and competitions.

Salma Mwishah: Student and Girls' Scholarship Recipient
"I am an 18-year-old student sponsored by WWF at Kitomondo Secondary School. I am the Chairperson of the girls under this program, Academic Prefect of the school, and a representative in a School Disciplinary Committee representing girls.

"I am the second-born of five children. The program is of great help to me, since it enables me to access textbooks for studies whereas the school did not have them before. Not only that, but it gives me an opportunity to stay in the hostel at the school where I have ample time for studying. I can exchange ideas with other girls and have more fun. My family is happy too for they are relieved of responsibilities to pay for secondary school.

"My ambition is to become an environmentalist so that I can educate my community about environmental issues and conservation in general."

Hadija Ahmad: Teacher and Former Girls' Scholarship Recipient
"I am working as a primary school teacher in Kifinge Primary School in Mafia Island where I am contributing toward educating my fellow young ones from Mafia. I completed my secondary education in the year 2002 at Kitomondo Secondary School. WWF's Girls Education Program sponsored me when I was in Form 4. In 2003 I joined Vikindu Teachers College for a one year teaching course under the sponsorship of Mafia Island Marine Park. The Girls' Education Program needs to continue funding the education of my young sisters in Mafia Island because the majority of families are poor."

Since Jari Maya took out a micro-credit loan to install the energy-efficient stove, others have quickly followed. Today, 80 percent of the 82 households in the village have similar systems in their homes.
© WWF Nepal/ Trishna GURUNG

Biogas is Better - Jari Leads the Way 
"One day I woke up and told my husband that I wasn't going to risk my life by collecting wood from the forest any more and that we were going to get a biogas stove, even if we had to take a loan," recalls Jari Maya Tamang, 41, as she stands proudly next to the first biogas system in her village in Badreni, Nepal - about a four-hour drive south-west from the capital, Kathmandu.

Sitting on the edge of Nepal's Chitwan National Park, home to some of the largest surviving populations of Bengal tigers and greater one-horned rhinos, Badreni has earned the distinction of being the first biogas village in Nepal's Terai Arc Landscape.

"The advantages of a toilet-attached biogas plant are numerous," says Jari Maya. "The village's reliance on forest fuelwood has decreased dramatically, and health and sanitation conditions have improved."
© WWF Nepal/ Trishna GURUNG

Located in the shadow of the Himalayas, the Terai Arc covers nearly 12.5 million acres from Nepal's Bagmati River in the east to India's Yamuna River in the west. As part of WWF's Terai Arc Landscape Program, some 7,500 biogas plants are to be installed in villages like Badreni over the next three years. With a dense population, high biodiversity and fragile ecosystems, deforestation is a major issue facing the Terai Arc.

Sixty-one percent of all households in Nepal's Terai Arc Landscape currently rely on fuelwood for cooking. A family uses an average of between 3-5 lbs wood every day. Evidence suggests that this is not sustainable.

Installing a biogas system in the house often improves the health of the family, especially that of women and children, who spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Cooking with firewood causes chronic respiratory diseases, especially as there are no chimneys in traditional rural houses in Nepal.

Biogas plants save women like Jari Maya trips into the forest to collect wood - where they are vulnerable to wildlife attacks.

Biogas Fast Fact
Biogas is produced from cattle manure and toilet waste. Each household can produce their own biogas by installing a toilet-attached biogas plant. The technology is simple: the manure and toilet waste are mixed with water and dumped in an airtight underground pit. In these anaerobic conditions, methane starts forming and it is led via a narrow pipe into the gas stove in the kitchen. A valve is turned on whenever the gas is needed for cooking. The gas in itself is pure methane, clean and odorless. It burns more effectively than wood, increasing the efficiency of cooking.

Photo © WWF Nepal/ Trishna GURUNG

Meet Shushma and Zahra  

© WWF

Shushma Rai: In the remote Nepalese village of Lawazin, young women have many responsibilities but very few choices. They are expected to marry, raise children and manage a home; they are not expected to pursue an education. Shushma Rai, however, decided to do things differently.

Born in 1983 to a poor family, Shushma was very young when her mother succumbed to illness. Within a few years she was left without either parent when her father moved away to remarry. Abandoned, Shushma lived with her uncle before getting married herself, leaving behind classes and following the path that so many other women are forced to take.

But a life of marriage and tending to household chores was not what Shushma wanted for herself. She made a decision to return to her uncle's house and continue her education. WWF's Kangchenjunga Conservation Area Project and local mother group rewarded her determination with a stipend from WWF's Girls Education Program - a scholarship that Shuhsma received five years in a row. She became the first woman from her village to go to college, has completed a teacher training program, and is now working on a Bachelors Degree at Pathivara College in Taplejung, Nepal.

© WWF

Zahra Shee: In 1982, Zahra Shee's village near Kiunga Marine National Reserve was ambushed, forcing her family to move to a nearby island with few resources. It was there that Zahra became the best student in her primary school - receiving the highest grade in the national examination.

When it was time for her to graduate to secondary school, Zahra's parents told her that they were too poor to pay her school fees. In 1998, WWF's Girls Education Program awarded Zahra a scholarship for her secondary education. As a student in program, Zahra participated in environmental education programs and received hands-on experience on turtle, coral and mangrove conservation. With WWF's support Zahra graduated at the top of her class, with further aspirations to become a teacher and give back to the community that needed her so desperately.

Now she is a teacher at Stonetown Academy in Lamu and integrates environmental messages into the subjects she teaches. She admits that the interaction with WWF's Kiunga Marine National Reserve staff and her fellow students helped to raise her self esteem. "Before, I would feel very intimidated to express my views when boys and men were around, but now I can freely and confidently put forward my thoughts and views without any fear."

Zahra strongly feels that less access to education results in fewer life choices for girls. She understands the role education plays in combating poverty, empowering women, promoting human rights and protecting the environment. "I feel it is a payback time, because WWF laid a good foundation for my life; they supported and guided me to excel. I am proud of being an empowered girl. I realize that girls can do anything they want. This is a belief that has changed my whole life to be what it is today and it will be part of me for the rest of my life. This is the message that I want to spread to the aspiring youth."

Learn More:
Women's Voices
WWF's Girls' Scholarship Program
WWF's Zeinab Musa