Speak Up for the Poor works to protect and educate girls who are under-resourced and vulnerable to child marriage and trafficking. Through Speak Up for the Poor’s Girls Education Program (GEP), girls stay in school through college graduation—giving them career opportunities and the ability to rise out of poverty.
Girls participating in the GEP face tremendous obstacles, including poverty, limiting societal assumptions about girls and women, and the threat of child marriage. By staying in school, they carry a great promise and great potential: to escape the cycle of poverty, to use their education to serve their families and communities, and to change the way girls and women are viewed and treated in their society.
Dozens of young women who joined the GEP years ago now have their first jobs working as teachers, tutors, and other staff of the GEP. Dozens of other graduates are also working as nurses and in other professions outside of the GEP.
In Bangladesh, the school year begins in January, so as the world welcomed the New Year, the GEP also welcomed 173 new girls!
Speak Up for the Poor is thrilled to report that 63 of the 69 young women who recently took their comprehensive exams after 12th grade received passing marks and graduated from high school! This 91% success rate exceeds the Bangladesh national rate of 85%, and was accomplished by young women from families in which no mothers had ever finished high school. They will be the first in their families to pursue a higher education.
Their promise and potential are coming to fruition. In early 2021, 116 young women in the GEP continued their education by enrolling in college, nursing school, or other higher education. That number nearly doubled in 2022, with more than 210 young women currently enrolled in the College GEP. At least 75 more are expected to join the College GEP in 2023.
Learn more about Speak Up for the Poor’s mission of protecting and educating girls who are under-resourced and vulnerable to child marriage and trafficking.
