Photo from Haitian Women’s Collective.
NEW YORK — The Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance (GOA) has selected The Haitian Women’s Collective as a partner to help build education for girls throughout Haiti.
The HWC will work alongside the Organization for the Development Integral of Dondon, known by its French acronym ODID, in the north of Haiti and Community2Community (C2C) in the south to launch a two-year program to help 20 girls attend secondary school. It will also support health education and leadership development training, according to the initiative’s official GoFundMe.
The partnership’s specific focus on education will be to strengthen the literacy rate among Haitian girls, which is currently 57% compared to a 64% average with men.
“Secondary education can help women and girls earn higher salaries, as well as access more opportunities to break the cycle of poverty in their families,” the organizations wrote in a statement.
Founded in 2017, the HWC unites women-led organizations across Haiti to strengthen communities by addressing issues like health and sanitation, youth programming and economic development.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama held the GOA’s first event earlier this year. The program supports grassroots organizations throughout the world working to empower and better the lives of adolescent women.
In addition to the two-year program, GOA plans for the money from the $50,000 GoFundMe campaign to support a STEM-career conference for adolescent girls in Haiti ages 15-18.