World Food Program USA Announces 2015 Grantees For The Catherine Bertini Trust Fund
Women and girls make up a majority of the world’s hungry people—mostly as a result of unequal access to education, resources and tools for economic and personal success. By empowering women and girls with knowledge, training and leadership skills, the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education is helping the world achieve zero hunger.
AKILI GIRLS PREPARATORY SCHOOL PROJECT
The Akili Girls Preparatory School provides underprivileged girls in Kisumu County, Kenya, with affordable quality education to help them break the cycle of poverty. The project goal’s is to generate sufficient income through focusing on horticulture, poultry, dairy cows, and renewable energy systems to meet educational, nutritional and medical support needs of girls. The Bertini Fund’s support will enable 30 girls to enroll at the Akili Preparatory School, a boarding school located away from the challenges they face every day in the slum. The project also empowers young women economically by employing them as teachers, matrons and cooks so that they can be independent and support their families.
BRIGHT GENERATION COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
Founded in 2006, the Bright Generation Community Foundation exists to assist the needy and disadvantaged, reduce poverty and instill a spirit of self-reliance in Ghana. The Bertini Fund’s support will help Bright Generation empower vulnerable school girls by ensuring better menstrual hygiene management. Funding will be vital to building a support system for young girls through: (1) providing reusable menstrual pads for needy girls to curb the high rates of menstruation-related absenteeism, (2) training female teachers and dispelling myths and (3) raising awareness about the importance of proactively managing one’s reproductive health in order to stay in school and improve the opportunity for better life outcomes.
PATHWAY TOGO
Founded in 2010, Pathways Togo’s mission is to advance the education of women and girls in the country of Togo through scholarships, mentoring, conferences, and life skills training. The Bertini Fund’s support will fund its book-lending program, the Karren Waid Dream Award and a Middle and High School Program Administrator. The book-lending program will not only provide much-needed access to school books in science and math, but a forum for each scholar to share resources with their peers and school community. The Dream Award gives six exceptional scholars—3 middle school and 3 high school scholars—the tools to fulfill their potential and the opportunity to implement small-scale projects to benefit their communities. Lastly, the Bertini Fund will support the hiring of a second Program Administrator in order to best monitor and provide valuable oversight and programming. The Program Administrator will focus solely on the middle and high school scholars, in addition to manage the day-to-day operations of the Aiming Higher initiative.
About the Fund
After winning the World Food Prize in 2003, Catherine Bertini, the former executive director for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), recognized an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for women’s empowerment. Bertini used her winnings to establish the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education, a fund that supports innovative grassroots initiatives around the globe that boost access to training and educational opportunities for girls. Since 2008, the Bertini Fund has awarded nearly a dozen grants.
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For more information, contact:
M.J. Altman, mjaltman@wfpusa.org, (202) 627-3932
