Education for every girl and young woman

The problem I'm committed to solving is the unequal access to quality education faced by girls and young women. The major cause of this is poverty and my solution is all about how we can use modern technology to extend the highly needed financial assistance to those girls and young women so that they are in a position to access quality education. I plan to use the mode of mobile money transfer. Whereby we go to communities and identify girls and young women who can't access quality education register their mobile money number and we extend monthly financial assistance. Mobile money as mode of money transfer is so popular and easy to use in most countries in subsaharan Africa. This kind of solution will help millions of girls and women to access quality education and to stay in school because what most of them need is financial assistance.

The specific problem within the challenge that I would like to solve is the unequal access to quality education faced by girls and young women. As far as access to education is concerned girls and women are at a disadvantage because two thirds of the world illiterate are women. And of the 132 million girls out of school globally, 52 million of them are in and subsaharan Africa. In Uganda 700,000 of  girls between 6 years to 12 years have never stepped a foot in class. 40% of girls below 18 years dropout of school due to early marriages. And in my community a half of girls below 18 years are either in early marriage or doing odd jobs, yet they are supposed to be in school. The major factor behind all those statistics is poverty of the families those girls and young women come from. Many of them are in refugee communities, hard to reach rural areas and that's the reason why I had to plan of a better way of how I can extend financial assistance to them.

My solution is the use of mobile money transfer. This is where one person has money on his/her phone in form of a mobile money account, they can be able to transfer it to another person anywhere around the country where they are located or even abroad. And when someone receives that money they go to a mobile money agent to make a withdraw. The technology is easily accessible in most parts of Africa and easy to use by even the illiterate. They can also use their mobile money accounts  to transfer money to and from a bank account. A mobile money account can also be used to to clear bills. This kind of technology uses any type of a mobile phone, when someone buys a simcard they can immediately get registered on mobile money, get a secret code for their mobile money account and they can easily send and receive money. Mobile money is so common in Africa because very many  people don't have access to financial institutions, but mobile money agents are easily accessible. 

My target population are the girls and the young women in subsaharan Africa especially those from poor families or refugee communities who can't access quality education. It's well known in Africa that in some communities when a family has a boy and a girl who are ready to school and the family has just enough to educate one child, the preference will first be given to a boy leaving the girl at home. And for those who are already in school, their chances of dropping out are high compared to their male counterparts. Many girl and young women dropout of school due to lack of access scholartic materials, sanitary pads, some are forced into early marriages by their families to get bride price, while others drop out to make living for themselves because their families can't provide for their basic needs. Having received all those Revelations from the survey I did I realised the best solution is to extend financial assistance directly through mobile money to those girls and young women or their families to cater for their education requirements and needs like buying scholartic materials, sanitary pads and other necessities while they are still in school.

The problem of unequal access to quality education faced by girls and young children especially because of poverty, which I plan to solve by extending financial assistance through the use of mobile money easily relates to the dimension of "increase the number of girls and young women participating in formal and informal learning and training", because both the problem and the dimension looks at the ways of improving the literacy of girls and young women. The major obstacle to both is poverty, and the major solution is using modern technology to extend financial assistance to them.

My solution is innovative in way that although mobile phones do exist almost everywhere, people had never taken the initiative to think of how they can be used to solve the high illiteracy levels among women. So I thought that if we can use mobile phone especially the mode of mobile money transfers to different families with girls and young women so that they can be able to access quality education. My solution is unique in a way that it will make it easier more than for girls and young women no matter where they come from, to get financial assistance necessary for their education needs. When women are educated everyone benefits.

The core technology of my solution is telecommunications. The main part of that is the use of mobile phones to transfer money from one phone to another, with ease and simplicity. The system of mobile money favours everyone and even the illiterate can use it. This will assist millions of girls and women to access quality education.

My solution uses the technology of mobile phones, which are in every part of the world. Since my solution will mostly deal with girls and young women in subsaharan Africa, it will be of a great advantage to me and my target population because the usage of mobile money has been fully utilised in this region of the world which will easily make the solution to work out.

When I receive the necessary funds for my solution, I will mobilise different teams in different communities in different countries, the work of the teams will be to go to different communities especially in rural areas and some towns in their countries, identify girls and young women who are unable to access education or those who are struggling to obtain education requirements and sanitary pads and any other means. They register them, get the their mobile money numbers or that of their family member, those who don't are not registered for mobile money will be assisted. With the necessary assistance, we plan collect a data base of close to 1 million girls and young women so that we extend some financial assistance to them monthly so that they can be able to buy the most crucial items to assist them to stay in school. And in some cases we shall pay for them school fees and tuition all through mobile money transfers. This kind of a solution will directly assist girls and young women access education because the major factor hindering them from accessing education or dropping out is poverty, so when we extend financial assistance to them, it will be a great boost in eradicating the global problem of illiteracy among women

Due to limited finances I currently help atleast five teenage girls with little assistance especially for scholartic materials, but when I receive the necessary funding i will be to extend mobile money transfers for education purposes to over 1 million girls and women within next year and to five million of them in the next five years.

My goal in the next year is to atleast educationally impact the lives of 1 million girls and young women. In the next five years the target is five million of them.

My major barrier is lack of funds to implement my solution. Therefore, if I get the necessary funds my solution will be implemented on wide scale.

I plan to mobilise for funds through applying for grants and enter into prize competitions.

I expect to apply for grants in order to cater for the education need of those vulnerable girls and young women to assist them to have better future.

I am applying to solve in to acquire funds in order to facilitate extending financial assistance to girls and young women to access quality education.

Since my solution is all about directly assisting girls and young women to access quality education by extending financial assistance using mobile money transfers, therefore my partnership goals are all about individuals and organisations which can stand with me in this cause. The most crucial solution of how we can reduce on the illiteracy levels among women is to make sure many girls and young women access education and since most of their families are not in position to do that for them due to poverty, is the reason why I think we can use the existing modern technology to extend financial help to them. Therefore, I need partners who would stand with me in this great cause.

I would like to partner with any organization, I wouldn't be so specific, but I'm willing to partner with any individual or organization that's will to come on board to make sure we can extend quality education to every girl and young woman especially those from poor backgrounds. We extend financial assistance to them or through their families, using mobile money transfers so that those who have never attended school can be get that opportunity, and we make sure those in the education system don't drop out.

Since refugee areas and camps also have girls and young women who can't access quality education and it's one of my target areas. Therefore, the Andan prize for innovation in refugee inclusion will be used to collect information about the girls and young women in refugee areas in Uganda a country with the refugee population of  over 1.3 million people, the highest in Africa, and the third highest in the world. Therefore, due to such a huge number, many girls and young women in refugee communities need assistance as far as accessing education is concerned and I will use the technology of mobile money transfer to extend financial assistance to them. Those who don't have mobile money accounts, we shall assist them to be registered so that they will be in position to receive the funds monthly which will assist them to buy certain school requirements like scholartic materials, sanitary pads and other female sanitary necessities. This will go along way in making sure such such girls and women access education and they don't drop out shool due to certain issues which we can easily help them with.

Since my solution rotates around extending financial assistance to young girls and women I feel I'm qualified for the innovation for women prize, because using mobile money to extend financial assistance to girls and young women so that they can access quality education is an idea that advances the needs of girls and young women.

Since my solution is all about of I can use the existing technology to extend financial assistance through mobile money to make sure girls and young women access quality education and to make sure they complete their studies, simply shows that my solution is all about empowering girls and young women to attain adult literacy and therefore, I feel I qualify for and I would like to be considered for the Gulbenkian award for adult literacy.