Women and Girls Education and Livelihood Support

This project closed on September 30, 2009. To read more about the project's successes, click on the Feature Stories to the right.

Counterpart International (Counterpart) is implementing a 12 month Women and Girls Education and Livelihoods Support project in Kapoeta South County, Eastern Equatoria State. The goal of the project is to increase access to education for returnee girls and income generation for returnee women.

Counterpart began its work in Sudan in 2005 delivering medical supplies and equipment to Darfur. Since then, Counterpart has procured, transported and delivered relief commodities valued at more than $7.8 million to communities in Darfur and South Sudan (at least 58 percent of beneficiaries are returnees). Counterpart established its office in South Sudan in 2006. In 2007, with $175,000 of funding from the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, our Community and Humanitarian Assistance Programs completed construction of an 8 classroom school in Kapoeta South County in Eastern Equatoria State in South Sudan.

Counterpart will achieve their goal of increasing women's education by institutional strengthening of a community based organization serving women returnees in Kapoeta Counties; establishing a brick-making social enterprise and providing corresponding vocational training for female returnee employees; and expanding the Longeleya Payam Primary School to include dormitories for girls, a kitchen and cafeteria and other facilities.
 
Education opportunities for girls in South Sudan are severely limited with only 20 percent of the 2.1 million school-age children enrolled and only 25 percent of this number being girls. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report, entitled the Whole Village Education Project, reported that it has been consistently demonstrated that "boarding schools facilitate girls' education because the girls are safe and able to focus on schoolwork as opposed to being occupied all day and evening with chores at home."

Similarly, there are very limited opportunities for income generation for women. Though the construction industry is booming in the area, the lack of skills and access to vocational training in construction trade makes it difficult for local residents to capitalize on employment opportunities.
 
By project completion 119 school-age girls will be attending the Longeleya Payam Primary School for Boys and Girls, 33 women will be trained and employed by the brick-making and construction skills and 7 female staff members of the community based organization will have been trained in NGO management, finance and administration and social enterprise development.

To learn more about Counterpart's Women and Girls Education and Livelihoods Support project in Sudan, please read the following feature stories:

Success: Rebuilding in South Sudan

Juba Women's Cooperative Introduces Brick Making

Photos: © Counterpart International.