Lurdes Mutola Foundation

Source: (Lee and Gund Foundation] (http://www.culturesofresistance.org/education-not-war/campaigns/mutola-mozambique)

The Lee & Gund Foundation is excited to engage in an innovative and long-term educational partnership with the prestigious Maputo-based Lurdes Mutola Foundation. A three-year grant has been dedicated to the new ‘Mais Escola para Mim’ (More School for Me) program, the objective of which is to increase the numbers of girls and young women who graduate from secondary schools in Mozambique, particularly in rural parts of the country.

Our grant will go towards scholarship fees for the girls selected for the program, will cover salaries of the dedicated female social workers who will work with them and liaise between the Foundation and the schools, and will also contribute to continued research into girls rural education by Mutola Foundation staff, to be gathered and developed into recommendations for national policy making. This pilot program has the potential to change the lives of the young women involved, as well as provide a successful model for the educational empowerment of women in African rural communities.

Background

The Mais Escola para Mim “More School for Me” scholarship program aims to address broad gender disparities in education found in Mozambique, as in many developing countries, especially in Africa. Better access to quality secondary and higher education is a must for responsible development.

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the world, ranked 10th lowest in the world on the Human Development Index.

Mozambique’s potential for development rests heavily on the improvement of education for its youth – 54 percent of Mozambicans are aged 19 or under (INE 2005). However, of the roughly 10.5 million school-aged children in Mozambique, less than 4.5 million are enrolled in school. Even more startlingly, less than half of the students who enroll in primary school stay in school long enough to begin in secondary school and less than one percent graduate from 12th grade (INE 2005).

These figures are significantly more extreme for girls: though girls and boys enroll in 1st grade in a roughly equal ratio, by only 43 percent of 8th grade students in 2006 were girls, and by 12th grade only 37 percent were girls. Girls are significantly more likely to drop out of school than boys (INE 2006).

The aggregate effect of this trend is that women in Mozambique have far lower levels of education than men. The national literacy rate for women is 39 percent, compared to 65 percent for men. In rural areas, only 3 to 23 percent of women are literate, depending on their age group (Handa et al 2004, 5).

The Lurdes Mutola Foundation

Founded by Olympic gold-medal winning runner Maria Mutola, the Lurdes Mutola Foundation aims to bring more young Mozambicans to sport and to assist in helping them achieve their sporting and educational potential. The Foundation has worked with the national Ministry of Health and UNICEF on national immunization campaign against measles and polio and housing development initiatives in Maputo. The Foundation began its activities in 2002 making small grants to athletes, hosting conferences and workshops and finding a way to get the busy Mutola to participate in activities, and has since expanded it’s range of programs and its budget. The Foundation maintains a strong emphasis on the empowerment of young women through education and sport.