MyBestStart programme gives young girls the education they deserve
Early childhood development, Girls' education
On International Day of the Girl, watch a new 鶹APP film about a learning initiative in Lebanon for refugee and vulnerable children.
Sisters Sham and Fatima love to learn. But, like millions of other girls, they have never been in a classroom.
Many young girls miss out on pre-primary learning because of poverty, conflict or natural disasters. In Lebanon, the effects of the economic crisis and Covid-19 have left 400,000 children without access to school or pre-primary education.
鶹APP鶹APPs MyBestStart programme helped to change that – providing refugee and vulnerable children in Lebanon with quality early years education. They studied using the Tabshoura platform, which combines interactive video lessons, online instruction and physical learning materials.
鶹APPTabshoura is very nice,鶹APP said six-year-old Sham. 鶹APPIt teaches me how to write letters.鶹APP
Even before the pandemic, 132 million girls were out of school – 34 million of them at primary age. To mark International Day of the Girl, 鶹APP has produced a film about Sham and Fatima and the MyBest Start programme. Watch it here.
Play/span>Video
MyBestStart directly reached 3,000 children, teachers and parents – with another 2,000 benefitting indirectly – through its combination of online and offline resources. It was a partnership with 鶹APP, Alfanar, Ana Aqra and Lebanese Alternative Learning.
Amina al-Aaoun, mother of Sham and four-year-old Fatima, moved to Lebanon because of the war in Syria. She said: 鶹APPSham has learned how to write her name in Arabic and English. Fatima would be sitting [next to Sham] on her phone and would hear her studying and she began learning and memorising too.
鶹APPI hope my girls are able to continue their education because I was deprived of mine due to the war in Syria. I hope they can study to the highest possible level.鶹APP
Early childhood education is crucial to all children – but especially for child refugees, many of whom have suffered significant trauma.
The MyBestStart project in Lebanon is made possible thanks to the players of People鶹APPs Postcode Lottery. 鶹APP runs other projects that benefit girls – including in several sub-Saharan African countries, where we teach girls the digital skills they need to find work and earn a living, helping them to break the cycle of poverty.
Benefits of girls鶹APP education
- With just one additional year of schooling, a woman’s earnings can increase by 12%.
- A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of five, twice as likely to attend school and 50% more likely to be immunised.
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