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By Cathleen O’Grady

Safe Passage is an educational program with a difference: In addition to providing resources for children, it recognizes the essential work of helping parents to lift themselves out of poverty, to the benefit of the entire family.

Known in Spanish as “Camino Seguro,” Foundation Beyond Belief’s Q1 2014 Education beneficiary runs an adult literacy program targeted at assisting adults in Guatemala City’s garbage dump region. Its CONALFA-accredited program is currently helping nearly 70 parents and grandparents to obtain a sixth-grade diploma, providing positive role modelling for children and creating improved employment opportunities, helping to stabilize families living in poverty.

Meanwhile, the Social Entrepreneurship Program provides business and leadership training to mothers enrolled in the adult literacy program. CREAMOS, an initiative of this program, now employs more than 28 women making jewelry, who between them have more than 125 dependents. All of these women have stopped working on the dump and have increased their income working for CREAMOS. A Safe Passage sewing company employs a further 20 mothers, who are learning a different project every week, equipping them with skills that may improve their opportunities long into the future. Finally, Safe Passage’s newest entrepreneurship project, Wipe, sees mothers employed creating recycled towels.

Irina, a single mother of five, approached Safe Passage for help with covering the cost of her children’s education. She was unable to help her children with their homework, and after hearing about the adult literacy program, enrolled in the classes. Only two years later, and she had reached seventh grade, becoming the first president of CREAMOS.

“Without Camino Seguro my children couldn’t study and I wouldn’t know what I know now,” says Irina. “I cannot—or don’t want to—imagine how my life would be without Camino Seguro. Now, my children have so many opportunities for their future. My life changed completely, all our lives here did!”

Irina explains that her community is filled with single mothers, and that Safe Passage is making a tangible difference to all of their lives. “We get these big food bags once a month, help with life skills and confidence, and medicine. With the selling of our jewelry I can earn money, which helps me a lot and makes me very proud.”

Esther is 81 years old and is enrolled in Safe Passage’s adult literacy program, learning to read and write for the first time in her life: “I like very much to come here and to chat with all the other women—and calculating! The teachers are very good. Now I’m able to communicate more with my grandchildren because I’m more intelligent. This makes me very happy. I will soon be able to read the newspaper.”

Pathfinders Project will be working with Safe Passage in May and June of this year. For more information about Safe Passage, take a look at their website, or keep up with them on Facebook or YouTube.

By Cathleen O’Grady

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 140 million girls and women worldwide have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), which the organization defines as any procedure involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia, or any injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

The practice is prevalent in western, eastern and north-eastern Africa, where the WHO estimates that 101 million girls and women over the age of 9 have undergone FGM, with another 3 million girls at risk every year. Approximately 32% of Kenyan women between 15 and 49 years old are thought to have undergone FGM, making it a vital point of concern for Women’s Global Education Project (WGEP), Foundation Beyond Belief’s Q3 Education beneficiary.

FGM is common in the Tharaka District in Kenya, which is home to one of WGEP’s Sisters to School programs. The practice is a coming-of-age ritual, a rite of passage marking girls’ transition from childhood to adulthood, and is often conducted on children as young as 12 years old. It is common for girls who have undergone the ritual to leave school in order to start a family, the ramifications of which are dire: Younger mothers are at greater risk of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, and other health concerns, are less able to earn a living to provide for their families and educate their children, and are less equipped to protect themselves against abuse—and their children also have a higher risk of mortality.

To combat the harmful effects of the practice itself (including a high risk of infection and death, and long-term effects such as dangerous childbirth), as well as the impact it has on education and the rest of a woman’s life, WGEP has joined with its local partner Ntanira Na Mugambo Tharaka Women’s Welfare Project (TWWP) to work against FGM in the region. WGEP sees fighting FGM as essential to keeping girls in school, which in turn is likely to further encourage the end of the practice.

Because FGM takes place as part of the coming-of-age rite of passage, a ritual common to many cultures, WGEP recognizes that simple elimination of the practice is unlikely to occur. It represents values such as family and community bonding, as well as marriage preparations and femininity, all of which form an important part of community identity. Girls who have not undergone FGM are often shunned because of its connotations with virginity and “purity.”

The solution? An alternative rite of passage, or a “Circumcision with Words,” a program developed by WGEP with TWWP. The program provides an alternative way to celebrate girls’ rite of passage into adulthood, without FGM, by addressing the cultural and social underpinnings of the practice. Community awareness workshops and FGM curricula in adult literacy classes offer parents an opportunity to learn about the harm caused by FGM and early marriage, while outreach to community leaders encourages them to help with the eradication of FGM in their communities.

Perhaps most important, “Circumcision with Words” offers a rite of passage for girls, involving a week’s seclusion with mothers and other female role models. During this retreat, girls are exposed to empowerment workshops, and at the end, the girls’ passage into adulthood is celebrated by family and community members, with speeches and songs. A cake is cut to celebrate the rite of passage.

Since the program began in 2007, 425 girls and their families have abandoned FGM, progress that is likely to have a snowball effect as those girls themselves have families—at a healthy age.

Women’s Global Education Project is doing important work toward Millennium Development Goals 2 (achieve universal primary education), 3 (promote gender equality and empower women), 4 (reduce child mortality), and 5 (improve maternal health). To learn more about them, visit their website or keep up with them on Facebook or YouTube.