CHARGE: Collaborative for Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls Education

Three Guineas Fund made a multi-year commitment to BRAC’s participation in CHARGE, a collaboration of civil society organizations, multilaterals and governments to improve learning and leadership opportunities for 14 million young women and girls over a period of five years. The initiative’s goals are:

• Ensuring that girls can attend and complete primary and secondary school,

• Making schools safer and more secure,

• Improving the quality of learning for girls,

• Supporting girls’ transition to higher education and employment, and

• Cultivating local country leaders to champion this work at the grassroots level.

The strategic approach is to focus on each stage of education for systemic change – from early childhood development and pre-primary schools through high school – building capacity through teacher training and development at each level.

We have always used an approach to development that puts power in the hands of the poor themselves, especially women and girls.  Educated girls turn into empowered women. And, as we have seen in my native Bangladesh and elsewhere, the empowerment of women leads to massive improvements in quality of life for everyone, especially the poor.

    – Sir Fazle Hasan-Abed, Founder and Chair of BRAC

BRAC Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents is the largest youth empowerment platform in Uganda.  The program targets adolescent girls between the ages of 13 and 21, especially those who are out of school. The primary goal is to assist the girls in achieving greater economic and social empowerment and become agents of change in their families and communities.