Grant Recipients
Established late in 2001, Give Girls A Chance (GGAC) has raised and granted over $375,000 for the education of girls in Canada and abroad. GGAC is a funding initiative of Tides Canada Foundation who handles the administration.
The projects supported are started and overseen by grassroots organizations and locally monitored directly by Canadian organizations who ensure that the funds are being used for the designated purpose.
GGAC is run by an Advisory Board of non-salaried volunteers. There are no paid staff.
International Projects
- Afghanistan Rights and Democracy **
- Ethiopia Oxfam Canada
- Guatemala Cimientos de Educaccion **
- Kenya LWAK Girls' High School **
- Pakistan Dil Canada - Developments in Literacy **
- Tibet Shenpen Fund Canada **
- Zambia Umoyo Training Centre for Girls
Canadian Projects
- National National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation
- Toronto, Ont. Jessie's Centre for Teenagers
- Toronto, Ont. Literature for Life **
- Victoria, B.C. Artemis Place (formerly Victoria Society for Educational Alternatives) ****
- Winnipeg, Man. Children of the Earth High School in Winnipeg**
** Funding during the current year
About the funding -
GGAC is consistent about the funding of girls, but there are times when donations are down and decisions must be made as to where the greatest benefit will be for grants. Some years certain projects have received very large grants from other sources making their need not as great. In this case we may delay funding that project. GGAC also has a mandate to stick to grassroots projects (those that are small, are being run locally, have a means of monitoring outcomes without incurring great overhead and where our grants can make a difference in the lives of girls. Fortunately, some of these small projects receive attention followed by multi-thousands of dollar grants, they grow and move beyond the parameters of the GGAC mandate.
GGAC is totally a volunteer organization.
Umoyo Training Centre for Girls - Zambia
This is what Stephen Lewis, the UN Special Envoy for AIDS/HIV in Africa has to say about the Umoyo Training Centre for Girls.
"The Umoyo School for Girls is the best example of girl's empowerment I've seen in many a year in Africa. It has about 50 girls, ranging in age from 14 to 18, all of them orphans, all of them democratically chosen by their communities. They come together in this residential setting for a year, and emerge from the desperate trauma of death and loss, fully self-confident, brimming with excitement about education and life, open and informed about the danger of HIV/AIDS and ready to tackle the world. They greeted my delegation with exultant singing (heavenly voices), and answered questions on everything from family history to future job prospects to their views on adolescent sexuality. It was exhilarating, beginning to end. The additional funds will help Umoyo increase the numbers of students; I cannot imagine a better gift." more pictures and outcomes >>>
Rights and Democracy - Afghanistan
- Photo by Lauryn Oates: Taken in 2003, Kabul, Afghanistan
Founded in 1996, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan) is a volunteer solidarity group committed to supporting human rights for Afghan women and girls. With over ten chapters and affiliated groups across Canada, members strive to support empowerment efforts of Afghan women in the areas of health care, skills development and education and to raise awareness in Canada of the need to secure and protect human rights for Afghan women and girls.
The donation from Give Girls A Chance will support young women and girls returning to school after years of oppression under the extremist Taliban regime.
For several years GGAC gave grants to Oxfam Canada who worked with partner organizations in over 20 countries in Africa, Central and South America and the Caribbean to help people tackle the root causes of poverty, social injustice and inequality, creating self-reliant and sustainable communities. Grants from Give Girls A Chance will go to support girls' education programs in Ethiopia. >>pictures and outcomes>>
National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation - Canada
The National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, established in 1985, provides scholarships to Aboriginal students for university and college studies. The emphasis is on education and training, so that students have the skills and education to enter the Canadian workforce and economy where they can make a difference for themselves and for their communities. Students are from across the country and of Inuit, First Nations and Metis backgrounds.
GGAC funded scholarships for three aboriginal girls obtaining post-secondary education. One has graduated as a nurse, one graduated in business, another is now in her second year at York University, where she was admitted after making the Dean’s list at George Brown College, an achievement that led to her tribal council paying her York fees until she graduates.
Give Girls A Chance no longer funds NAAF as it now receives substantial federal government funds and corporate endowments
Chungba Primary School was founded by a Tibet/Canadian family to provide a school in which girls in this valley could get an education. Boys were educated by monks ...girls, never! Now, more than 65% of the students are girls.
Chungba school’s record is outstanding! For the last three years the Chinese ministry of education judged Chungba Primary “best school’ out of the 850 schools in this prefecture (province). Students are taught the Chinese curriculum, in Chinese (compulsory), but they are also are taught the Tibetan language and culture. In addition, the community of Chungba, which helped build the school, benefits from jobs, fresh, pure water in their homes from a school-built pipeline, and
regular medical service (previously non-existent), by a school-funded doctor. In June, 2008, the first students graduated from Grade 6. The Chinese ministry of education evaluates performance in final exams at every school in Tibet. The Chinese now send their educators to Chungba to learn “best practices”.
A middle school (grades 7 to 9) has been built, again with community labor and support. It opened Sept. 2008, and serves not only the 80 Chungba grade 6 graduates, but many students from elsewhere in Litang County where there are no schools beyond grade 6. Without further education they will remain marginalized semi-nomadic people, unable to access good jobs or take part in the new China-dominated Tibet. Plus, it is schools like Chungba that will ensure the survival of the Tibetan language and culture and education for girls.
>>more information>>>
Children of the Earth High School - Winnipeg
A Grade 9 class for “girls only” class at this high school has reduced a drop-out rate of more than 40% to 0 (that’s right: ZERO)! Give Girls a Chance funding goes to programs and extra-curricular activities that connect the students to their aboriginal past, through music, outings, art and community service. Several girls have gone on to university. Danielle, who said she would never have graduated from a regular, mixed-class program, is now in second year at law school, on the way to fulfilling her ambition of becoming a judge.
DIL ABID & DIL MUHAMMAD (Orangi district) Pakistan
Developments in Literacy (DILCanada) establishes schools in Pakistan’s remote areas, “abysses of poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment”. DIL’s mandate is “to spread literacy and eliminate a pervasive resistance to the education of girls.” DIL works by gaining the support of a respected village elder who convinces parents, particularly reluctant fathers, of the importance of educating daughters.
Experienced educators monitor the projects, including standards of teaching. GGAC funds two schools: DIL Abid (142 students, to end of grade 5) and DIL MUHAMMAD, 131 students, to end of grade 6). Both schools are in the destitute area of Orangi, southern Pakistan. Funding goes to train and pay teachers, buy supplies (blackboards, books, writing and art materials, computers) and to supplement fees for girls whose families can’t possibility afford even the smallest of fees. >>more information and pictures>>
Foundations For Education - Cimientos de Educaccion - Guatemala
Foundations for Education was founded by an American/Guatemalan woman to provide middle school (grades 7 to 9) education for Mayan girls from communities which have no schooling beyond Grade 6. It is a residential school where girls get an all-round education: academics (including computer skills), agriculture (because they are from subsistence farming communities), health, and social justice issues(such as women’s rights). Girls must maintain good marks, and do specified hours of community service to remain in school. Each year Give Girls A Chance supports several girls in IMOA (name of this school).
GGAC also funds the full cost of teacher’s college for Mayan high school graduates who commit to returning to their communities to teach primary school, the only opportunity for non-Spanish speaking children to get an education. (The government funds primary education to grade 6, but only in Spanish). Two of the young women GGAC supported are now back in their villages teaching.
For more information >>
LWAK Girl's High School - Kenya
Girls from small villages in Rarieda, one of Kenya’s poorest districts, attend LWAK. This boarding school provides an all-round academic education, life skills including health and sex education plus empowerment and leadership skills that will prepare them to be role models and leaders in their communities. This year LWAK earned a ranking of 74th out of Kenya’s 4000 high schools. >>more information>>
Jessie's Centre for Teenagers - Toronto, Ontario
Jessie's Centre for Teenagers has been offering vital support to teenage parents and their children for the past 21 years. At Jessie's teenagers find the respect and support they need as they are becoming mothers and becoming women. Jessie's holistic program helps with all areas of their lives - education, health care, housing and daycare, prenatal and parenting education. Their practical supports help reduce the impact of poverty on the lives of young families.
Literature for Life - Toronto, Ontario
Enables at-risk teenage mothers, through reading and discussion groups, to gain self-esteem and self confidence, to seek further education, to develop employable skills, and to be good mothers. Their literacy skills are put to practice in award winning publications. More than 1,200 girls and their children have benefited from Literature for Life’s unique program. The success rate is astonishing!
Read more, learn about their publications and accomplishments >>
Artemis (formerly Victoria Society for Educational Alternatives) - Victoria, BC
Provides education and life skills to teen-age girls whose life experiences -addictions, physical or sexual abuse, mental health problems, and poverty -prevent them from fitting into a regular school. Without Artemis, they would remain drop-outs. When the Victoria Board of Education stopped funding a program in the public high school for these girls, Artemis stepped in with a brilliant solution: the B.C. high school curriculum via the internet, through the Nechako area of northern British Columbia which serves its scattered student body via the web. Now the girls at Artemis get their high school courses via computer, with personal one-on-one help available from volunteer teachers in Victoria. Girls who were failures in a regular high school, who expected to be failures in life, are graduating with good marks, life plans, and achievable dreams.>>More information >>