To date, the Education Champion Network has invested in 94 partner organisations working across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania and Turkey.
Malala Fund is excited to welcome 23 new advocates and their organisations to the Education Champion Network.
The Education Champion Network supports innovative education advocates and organisations challenging the policies and practices that prevent girls from going to school in their communities. Malala Fund invests in their work, supports their professional development and connects them with each other to harness their collective power for girls’ education.
Our 2023 Education Champions are based in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania. Their projects vary based on location and need. Some of the initiatives Malala Fund is supporting this year include helping girls in coastal regions of Bangladesh access STEM education and addressing stigmas keeping young Tanzanian mothers out of the classroom.
"It is exciting to welcome our sixth cohort of incredible Education Champions and reflect on how much this network has grown in the past few years,” says Miriam Kirubel, Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network Programme Director. “Building a more equal world for girls takes time. Yet by resourcing these partners' work, their learning journeys and facilitating collective action, Malala Fund believes we can advance progress for girls."
Education Champions collaborate at national, regional and global levels on joint advocacy campaigns and projects. By combining their efforts and expertise, they can scale their impact and help even more girls go to school. To date, the Education Champion Network has invested in 94 partner organisations working across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania and Turkey.
To support the continued expansion and effectiveness of the network, Malala Fund is piloting a Global Steering Committee made up of Education Champions from each active national chapter. In collaboration with the Malala Fund team, the committee will help guide the future priorities and activities of the Education Champion Network.
Meet the latest cohort of Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network:
BANGLADESH
Shirin Akhter, Director, Friends in Village Development Bangladesh
Friends In Village Development Bangladesh provides educational and socio-economic tools and training programmes for people in Sylhet. With the organisation’s grant, Shirin and the team will increase school enrolment rates for girls living in tea garden communities by offering them remedial classes, psychosocial support and community workshops. Working with the community, Friends In Village Development Bangladesh will help girls access hygienic facilities and ensure they get to school safely by providing them with bicycles and encouraging them to travel in groups.
Munir Hasan, Founder, Bangladesh Open Source Network (BDoSN)
Bangladesh Open Source Network implements nationwide projects that increase young people's access to STEM education. With their grant, Munir and the team will help reduce the gender digital divide in climate vulnerable coastal regions by providing secondary school-aged girls with access to technology and related extracurricular opportunities to teach STEM skills and foster climate resilience.
Farida Yesmin, Founder and Executive Director, Disabled Rehabilitation and Research Association
Disabled Rehabilitation and Research Association works to promote equity for persons with disabilities. With their grant, Farida and the team will help get more out-of-school girls into the classroom by advocating for safer, more inclusive learning environments, working with community members to dismantle discriminatory social norms and providing girls with leadership and life skills training.
Kamrul Kibria Ayon, Education Program Manager,JAAGO Foundation
Through quality education and youth empowerment, JAAGO Foundation works to improve the lives of young people living in Mithamain Upazila who face high rates of poverty, child marriage, food insecurity and climate instability. With their grant, Kamrul and the team will lead efforts to reenrol out-of-school girls by training teachers, running leadership development clubs for girls at local schools and advocating at a local and national level for gender-responsive, quality education.
ETHIOPIA
Saba Gebremedih Hagos, Executive Director, Network of Ethiopian Women Association
The Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations is a national coalition of organisations working to advance women’s rights and gender equality. With their grant, Saba and the team will advocate for stronger girls’ education policies during and after conflict in Ethiopia and empower young women to speak up and fight for their rights.
Girma Admasu Mezemir, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Positive Action for Development
Positive Action for Development addresses barriers to girls’ education in the central and eastern regions of Ethiopia. With their grant, Girma and the team will work with eight schools in Oromia state to increase girls’ capacity to advocate for themselves, raise local awareness of the importance of girls’ secondary education and build a community of stakeholders to push regional leaders to increase the budget for girls’ education.
Kussia Bekele Beyene, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Resource Center for Sustainable Change
Resource Center for Sustainable Change promotes democracy, inclusive development, access to quality education, human rights and peace building using a rights-based, gender-sensitive approach. With their grant, Kussia and the team will work in Sidama to increase girls’ access to quality education by helping girls’ clubs develop and run their own advocacy campaigns, offering capacity-building support to school communities and organising stakeholders to call on leaders to improve girls’ access to quality education.
LEBANON
Cecilia Chami, Programmes Director, Lebanon Family Planning Association for Sustainable Development
The Lebanon Family Planning Association for Sustainable Development works to expand access to reproductive health services and information, and empower women and youth. With their grant, Cecilia will improve girls’ access to quality education by offering them workshops on coding, robotics, renewable energy and life skills. They will also train teachers on how to make subjects like STEM and robotics more accessible and raise community awareness on the benefits of girls’ education.
Amel Association International (Education Champion to be selected)
Amel Association’s health and development programmes work to improve the quality of life for Lebanon citizens impacted by crises. With their grant, the team will increase access to quality education for youth living in Beirut and Mount Lebanon whose families were among the most impacted by Lebanon's economic crisis. They will accomplish this by engaging the community in the fight for education equality, training teachers on developing gender-responsive curriculums and providing students at risk of dropping out of school with access to tutoring and mental health support.
Nadine Hamadeh, Program Manager, Family Rights Forum
Family Rights Forum works to foster a culture of conversation around human rights and gender equality among Lebanese families. With their grant, Nadine and the team will raise awareness about the link between child labour and school dropouts in Lebanon and advocate for better implementation of child labour laws and the right to education.
Deenah Fakhoury, Executive Director, Global Compact Network Lebanon
Global Compact Network Lebanon works to provide members with national opportunities for learning, capacity building, policy dialogue and partnerships that align with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. With their grant, Deenah and the team will improve quality education across six regions by offering skill-building workshops to students and out-of-school girls, securing parental commitments to keep girls learning and working with local partners to offer scholarships to help more girls reenrol.
Kadria Hussein, Chief Executive Officer, Alsama Project
Alsama Project supports and empowers refugees living in Lebanon. With their grant, Kadria and the team will help teenagers in Shatila reject early marriage and child exploitation and focus on education, self-development and community improvement instead.
NIGERIA
Abubakar Sadiq Mu’azu, Founder, Center for Advocacy, Transparency and Accountability Initiative
Center for Advocacy, Transparency and Accountability Initiative is a youth-led nonprofit pushing for institutional reform and the empowerment of citizens in Nigeria. With their grant, Abubakar and the team will help get more girls into secondary school across six communities in Adawama state by promoting girls’ education at the community level. They will also bring civil society organisations, youth and other stakeholders together to form a budget monitoring and advocacy group that will advocate for increased education financing and gender-responsive education.
Adebukola Bukky Shonibare, Founder, Invictus Africa
Invictus Africa promotes human rights and addresses gender inequality through data-driven and evidence-based advocacy, legal and policy reviews and capacity development. With their grant, Adebuokla and the team will increase girls’ attendance in Oyo and Gombe states by advocating for a more gender-sensitive, girl-informed education budget allocation.
PAKISTAN
Aisha Ijaz, Program Director, Aahung
Aahung’s advocacy and programmes promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for all. With their grant, Aisha and the team will make information and services related to sexual and reproductive health more accessible to young women. They will conduct teacher trainings, run awareness campaigns and research the effectiveness of existing policies on SRHR curriculum content.
Muhammad Hassan Hakeem, Gender and Inclusion Advisor, Anthro Insights
Anthro Insights seeks to foster people-centric legislation, programmes and initiatives by developing better data on social behaviour. With their grant, Muhammad and the team will create the Inter Provincial Education Caucus, an alliance of national political leadership that will work collectively to improve legislation, push for inclusive policies and generate public support for girls' education.
Khadija Shahper Bakhtiar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Teach for Pakistan
Teach for Pakistan recruits and supports university graduates and young professionals to teach full-time in low-income schools through a two-year fellowship programme. With their grant, Khadija and the team will increase young women’s STEM participation in higher education and careers by training students and advocating for more inclusive policies on women’s workforce participation.
TANZANIA
Paulina Ngurumwa, Gender, Women and Children’s Affairs Unit Coordinator, KINNAPA
KINNAPA is a pastoralist community-based organisation based in Manyara that works to protect their land rights and safeguard their standards of living. With their grant, Paulina and the team will work across the Manyara Region to enrol more young women in schools by working holistically with educators, communities, leaders and girls themselves to improve school facilities, public perception of girls’ education and increasing girls’ capacity to advocate for their rights.
Zahra Salehe, Founder and Executive Director, Integrating Capacity and Community Advancement Organization (ICCAO)
ICCAO is a young women- and youth-led organisation that equips young people with the skills and knowledge they need to be independent and address the challenges they face. With their grant, Zahra and the team will increase girls’ graduation rates in 20 schools across two regions of Mara by helping communities to reexamine discriminatory social norms and empowering girls to advocate for their right to learn.
Mgusuhi Jackson Maswi,Programmes Manager, Msichana Initiative Organisation
Msichana is a young women- and youth-led organisation working to advance gender equality by advocating for girls’ right to education. With their grant, Mgusuhi and the team will boost girls’ school enrolment in Tabora and Dodoma by tackling the stigma around young mothers’ reentry to schools and advocating for the legal enactment of the Re-Entry Policy Guideline.
