Our projects - 2009

Once again, thanks to the generous support of our growing network of donors and supporters, 60 million girls will double its yearly fundraising objective to $200,000 for 2009. This funding will enable us to support two extraordinary projects: the Girl Child Network of Zimbabwe, which supports school-age girls between the ages of 0-16 years, and a 3-year project that will offer Lenca girls in Honduras a chance to be educated beyond grade 6, a very significant and otherwise impossible opportunity.

Empowering Girls through Education in Zimbabwe: the Girl Child Network project

The Girl Child Network (GCN) was established in 1999 to give a voice to school-age girls between the ages of 0-16 years across Zimbabwe. Through proactive training and preventative intervention, GCN empowers young girls to become strong advocates on their own behalf and to speak out when their rights are being violated. GCN has directly benefited over 60,000 girls in 700 girls' clubs, in 40 of the country's 58 districts. It has also created three Girls' Empowerment Villages, where survivors of rape and sexual abuse can seek refuge and rehabilitation.

The underlying raison d'être of the GCN is that girls' education must not be the exception, it must be the rule, and it must go beyond primary school so that girls can become nurses, teachers, doctors, professors, a full education that allows them to become fully participating members of Zimbabwean society.

Educating Lenca Girls Today, Empowered Lenca Women Tomorrow

The Lenca people represent one of the most impoverished and oppressed indigenous populations in Honduras. In the municipality of San Francisco de Opalaca, one of the poorest regions in the country with 90% of the Lenca living in poverty and 70% living in "extreme poverty," the living conditions are so desperate that parents cannot afford even staple food, nor the basic supplies and uniforms required for their children's admission to primary school.

In the short term, this project funded by the 60 million girls Foundation in partnership with Acceso International will increase access to education by providing invaluable life-changing educational opportunities for 250 Lenca girls, aged 5 to 18, who live in the remote and extremely underserved mountainous villages in the municipality of San Francisco de Opalaca, located in the northern part of the department of Intibucá in south-western Honduras. This project will help girls overcome paralysing patriarchal barriers by enhancing their human rights, dignity and employability.

This initiative will also improve access to school and will enhance the quality of education for over 3,000 children in the San Francisco de Opalaca region. The main benefit of this project will be enabling girls to be educated beyond grade 6, a very significant and otherwise impossible chance for most Lenca girls in the San Francisco de Opalaca region of Honduras.