Girls Achievement Program

This initiative was developed to “Mind the GAP,” ensuring that girls have an equal opportunity to attend secondary school.

Unfortunately, education is not “free” in many parts of the world. School fees, uniform requirements, shoes and backpack present insurmountable obstacles for many families. Research shows that if a family must make a tough choice about which child to send to school, the boy child is selected to go. The Girls Achievement Program, called “GAP” for short, was an idea by the HealthEd Connect Board of Directors that blossomed into reality.

The GAP scholarship provides opportunities for girls passing grade 7 at each of our three partner community schools to continue onward, from Grade 8 through 12, at local government schools. We had our first graduating class of GAP scholars from Grade 12 at the end of 2020!

The GAP weekly program is based out of each one of our three sister schools, designed to empower girls in grades 5-7 with information about female development, character building, and life skills growth. The GAP weekly program is facilitated by a Kafwa (CHW) and a teacher.

More recently, the girls in the GAP scholars program (grades 8-12), who continued to come for the weekly GAP meetings, were expressing that they would like to be called the “Keeping In Touch” Club, or KIT for short, to represent themselves. Besides wanting to discuss some topics that related more specifically to their age, these young women also expressed that they were falling behind in school due to lack of study materials and other resources such as computers needed to practice to prepare for exams. And hence, the KIT Club was born. This program is still new, but we’re noticing improved results outcomes, attributed to the KIT Club resources now available.