wfn.org | Eritrea: Coming out of Her Shell

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

LWF Supports Girls' Right to Education

KUSHET, Eritrea/GENEVA, 21 November 2001 (LWI) - When friends ask
fifth grader Almaz Hassen how she managed to receive the second-best
prize in her class, the 13-year-old responds with a gentle smile: "I
participated in all class activities, attended Mathematics and
English tutorials every weekend without fail and completed my
assignments punctually." Almaz approached her teachers whenever she
had difficulty understanding what had been taught, she tells her
friends.

The young Eritrean girl discovered the classes through her mother Ms.
Haimanot Berhane. Anxious about her daughter's poor performance in
English and Mathematics, Berhane had turned to the Lutheran World
Federation Department for World Service (LWF/DWS) Eritrea- Program
for assistance.

Almaz attends the Kushet Tsada Emba Elementary School, one among 25
elementary schools targeted for the Project for Improving Girls'
Participation and Performance in Education (PIGPPE). Initiated in
July 2000 following an agreement between the National Union of
Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS) and LWF/DWS-Eritrea, the overall
aim of the project is to develop positive attitudes towards girls and
women by increasing girls' participation and performance in
education. The project's major activities include promoting the
concept of girls' right to education through mass campaigns,
sensitizing parents and authorities, organizing training for teachers
and supervisors, and counseling and coaching students in tutorial
classes, says Ms. Sewit Abraham, PIGPPE's Project Officer from NUEYS.

Berhane is determined to help her daughter continue with her
education until she realizes her goal to become an engineer. The
obviously proud mother says of her daughter, "Almaz has improved a
lot especially in communication. She was a bit shy and a worrisome
gual (daughter) may be because she missed her father's love.
Nowadays, she is asking questions and communicating better. She is
responding more assertively than before." Almaz's parents, both
ex-fighters, [in Eritrea's liberation struggle] were divorced 10
years ago when she was just three years old. The young teenager has
been brought up in her maternal grandparents' home in Kushet village,
near the capital Asmara.

Equal Recognition of Men's and Women's Contribution to the Liberation
Struggle

Berhane works in a local gas-filling station with a monthly salary of
683 Nakfa (USD 69), the only source of income for the five-member
household including the mother, her two daughters and their
grandparents. Recently the family acquired a piece of farmland from
the government under a new law that allows women and men equal access
to land. The policy is in recognition of women's and men's
achievement in Eritrea's 30-year-old struggle for liberation from
Ethiopia that ended successfully in 1991.

Asked about the reasons that led to divorce and subsequent family
separation, Berhane says "fighting and living in the bush was easier
than living in the city. I am a fighter..." Besides her job, the
daily struggle of providing for her family preoccupies her. She is
confident of her "patience, stamina and fervor to fight as I did for
the country. This is what I gained from the front line."

She appreciates the PIGPPE project, and readily offers whatever
support she can for its success and expansion. "With great effort, we
are operating this school. People like us can neither afford private
teachers nor the private school," says Berhane.

The Kushet Tsaada Emba Elementary School was established in 1968 but
was forced to cease operations to serve as military camp for four
years until 1979. Currently there are 960 students, out of which 487
are girls. At first the girl students were shy and afraid to
participate in the sessions. But as they gained confidence, their
participation gradually increased. In the last academic session, more
than 85 percent of the girls and 65 percent of boys passed their
examinations. All the students enrolled in the tutorial class except
one qualified for sixth grade.

During the academic year 2000/2001 over 1,400 students participated
actively in the tutorial classes run in 18 high and 25 junior and
elementary schools in six regions in Eritrea. More than 140 teachers
and 43 directors regularly taught and supervised the classes.
Assistant project officers stationed in the regions continue to
sensitize community members including parents and teachers. As a
result, there were no dropouts from the class and 98 percent of the
girls under this program completed the academic session, scoring
relatively higher marks than before, said Ms. Akberet Fre,
DWS-Eritrea deputy development coordinator.

This achievement has prevented some of the girls from being married
off in a country where marriage comes much earlier. The program has
enabled the girl students to achieve their right to education. It has
also helped the Eritrean government to fulfill its obligation as a
ratifying member of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child, which it signed in 1993.

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now has 133
member churches in 73 countries representing over 60.5 million of the
64.3 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on behalf of its
member churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development
work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material
presented does not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of
its various units. Where the dateline of an article contains the
notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced with
acknowledgment.]

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