Initiated in 2005, the Promotion of Girls’ Education Campaign is an annual campaign aimed at eliminating gender disparities in education, and specifically empowering girls to excel in school.
Imbuto Foundation’s education interventions do not solely cater to young girls, however, the Best Performing Girls award has become a staple of our Foundation. The Best Performing Girls Award is under the umbrella of the Promotion of Girls’ Education Campaign, which seeks to empower girls into successful studies and later, fruitful careers.
Girls’ Education: A Tool For Greater Population Welfare
The emphasis the Foundation has placed on Girls’ Education stems from the greater incidence of school “drop-out” in women, the economic wage gap, and the prevalence of teen pregnancy nationwide.
Studies have linked girls’ education to reduced child marriage and fertility rates, which is crucial to the healthy development of our communities for many reasons ranging from food security to fulfilled health needs. Furthermore, educated girls are more likely to have the critical thinking skills and confidence to earn themselves more stable lives, healthier interpersonal relationships, and make informed choices pertaining to their health.
Nevertheless, obstacles remain in the encouragement of girls to pursue and complete their education. For one, women and girls are often caged into purely domestic roles; therefore, there is less incentive for parents to invest, in funds or other efforts, in their daughters’ education. Secondly, girls are more likely to be socialized into silence, leading them to participate less in school.
Awareness of these issues and the desire to tackle them are how Imbuto Foundation’s Best Performing Girls Award was born. Championed by Her Excellency the First Lady of Rwanda, the Best Performing Girls award has nurtured and empowered several frontrunners of our national transformation.
Here are a few things you may not have known about this award:
1. Prestige Opens Doors
Being a Best Performing Girl, commonly known as “Inkubito y’Icyeza,” is a title that opens a few doors. BPG alumni have reported a facilitated immersion into the workforce due to the network of BPG awardees currently working in various Rwandan offices, including the Rwandan government.
2. The Empowerment Continues
Imbuto Foundation’s relationship with the Best Performing Girls is not limited to the award. A series of empowerment forums themed “Let Us Dream Big and Act” are conducted regularly and bring together rewarded girls in several cohorts, with role models and fellow BPGs among young professionals. The forums aim at continuously empowering the BPGs in a variety of areas, imparting life skills such as personal goal-setting and chasing their goals (dreaming big and acting), self-discipline, the saving culture, and career guidance among others.
In addition to the forums, Imbuto Foundation further enforces the culture of peer mentorship among the BPGs, through school-based Inkubito z’Icyeza Forums for Excellence (IZIFE) clubs. These bring together rewarded girls in their secondary schools, but are open for other girls and boys to join. The clubs are challenged to initiate and implement innovative activities in their schools and communities, to complement their academic excellence with service to their community. Such clubs were established in 20 secondary schools, and their initiatives include publishing quarterly newsletters, planting and managing vegetable gardens in the schools, mentoring fellow girls in neighboring primary schools, and teaching each other practical skills such as embroidery, hairdressing and decoration. Some clubs have gone as far as generating income and supporting their fellows with school fees and other basic needs from their own funds.
After secondary school, the chain does not break. The rewarded girls become members of a large BPG alumi network, a continued peer mentorship platform, which intervenes in girls’ empowerment activities countrywide, focusing on secondary schools. Members of the network are also part of the larger database of youth empowered by the foundation through its youth empowerment and mentorship programmes, and are always challenged to become champions for girls empowerment.
3. The BPG award is Not A Scholarship Fund, Though There is A Cash Prize
BPGs are awarded RWF 50,000, a token of celebration for their hard work. It also serves to remind them that financial reward often occurs through academic excellence. However, the package does not include a study scholarship for the rewarded girls, and the programme should not be confused with Imbuto Foundation’s “Edified Generation” Scholarship Project, which sponsors the education of brilliant but economically disadvantaged secondary students in Rwanda. The Best Performing Girls are also gifted books and other scholastic materials that aim to assist them in their further studies. For the BPGs awarded at the end of secondary school specifically, each one received a laptop and a 3-week-long training session on the basics of information technology.
4. It Is Possible To Be Awarded Three Times
BPGs are awarded at the end of primary six, senior 3, and senior six. Therefore, it is possible for a girl to be awarded three times during her education. This triple prestige may be competitive, but a number of girls have achieved it and it makes for solid university applications, and recommendation letters. This confirms that indeed excellence begets excellence and, even if one can miss the next award, the effort ensures that they get the best for themselves and set ambitious targets.
5. The Selection Process Varies Based on The Educational Stage
The further ahead, the fewer the award recipients. In Primary 6, 1 BPG per sector is selected. At the end of the Ordinary Level (Senior 3), 1 BPG per district is selected. At the end of secondary school (Senior 6), 5 best-performing girls are chosen per province and the city of Kigali. Note that the sector, district, and province are where the candidates registered for national examinations.
6. Rwanda Must Bank on Girls’ Education
As a well-known African proverb says, “If you educate a girl, you educate a nation.”. The promotion of girls’ education is a vital national priority for Rwanda to secure a bright future. Imbuto Foundation is committed to uplifting girls until they are no longer vulnerable to social conditions that limit their opportunities. However, it is important for the efforts of the Government of Rwanda and institutions that mirror their vision, to be matched with involvement from the population.
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