The Association for the Development and

Enhancement of Women (ADEW)

❑ ADEW was registered as a
non- governmental
organization with the Egyptian
Ministry of Social Solidarity in
1987 under registration
number 3528.

❑ The first ADEW office opened in

Manshiet Nasser, which is one of
the largest and most populated
squatter communities in Egypt
generally and Cairo specifically.
❑ ADEW was the first NGO to
address the needs of Female Heads
of Households (FHH) in low-
income areas and identify them as a
distinct target group since we
started our work in Manshiet
Nasser

❑ As we discovered that 40% of all

households in the Manshiet Nasser
are female-headed households,
and that they had no skills
❑ Because the female in this area drops
school when she is 9 years old, and get
married at the age of 16. And at the same
time the government programs did not
extend to squatter areas by then.

❑ So ADEW was the first NGO to

introduce the term of "Female House
Holds“, in addition to design and
implement integrated programs

❑ to assist them in their struggle as

breadwinners, and to accomplish our target
in achieving the sustainable development
in the Egyptian society.
 Economic
empowermen
t through
Micro Credit
program
Health
empowerment
Violence through
Elimination medical
convoys and
Program health
awareness
program
FHH & the
Including: surrounding
• The development
Development
area
of schools. of the Educational
• The development surrounding empowerme
environment nt through
of medical centers. through Education
• Markets community
program
• development. mobilization
program
• The development Legally Including:
of buildings and through • Girls’ Dreams Program.
houses. legal • Literacy Program.
• Cleanliness and program • Arab Women Speak out.
lighting campaigns • -Scholarship program.
➢ Adew has 16 field offices in squatter
areas in different governorates, they
are Cairo, Qalioubiyah, and Fayoum,
South Sinai and Gharbyya
governorates.

➢ In Cairo we work in:

✓ Helwan.
✓ Masr El Qadema.
✓ Manshiet Nasser.
✓ Gamae Amr.
✓ Gyyara.
➢ El Malek El Saleh.
➢ ADEW opens these field offices in
various squatter areas in these
governorates, where inhabitants suffer
from different problems, such as:
poverty, ignorance, Unemployment, and
other problems that these photos reveal
a little about it.
➢ We work in the field ,
that makes us close to
our beneficiaries and
allows us to be more
aware about their
needs and problems.
❑ ADEW through a research conducted by ADEW Chairperson,
Dr. Iman Bibars, revealed that an alarming 30% of daughters
of ADEW beneficiaries have dropped out of school, and that
they have no ambitions or daydreams about their future.

❑ This program targets female dropouts from 9 to 18 years of age.,

As many girls in working areas are pushed out of schools to help
their families or to get married, ADEW has targeted the little girls
who are deprived from education and has worked on reshaping
their interests and empowering them to fit in with their
communities and changing their low self-esteem. That is why
ADEW decided to implement “Girls’ Dreams Program”.
❑ The “Girls’ Dreams” Program was
started in 1999 believing in girls’
rights to dream, express themselves
and to have the ability to make a
choice.

❑ We seek through “Girls’ Dreams” to

teach girls how to dream and enjoy
their lives through a set of activities
including: self confidence, health
awareness, visiting libraries, drawing,
sports and handicrafts to enable
them to start up their SMEs.
❑The program has been introduced via opening class
rooms, with 20 girls per class. The place is rented in
the same streets where the girls live to guarantee the
sustainability of the program and the graduation of the
girls.

❑The program is not only to teach girls useful skills but

also to help them solve their problems. The girls
narrate their problems while the program offers them a
healthy environment to speak out and express their
problems. The program also offers health awareness
sessions and discussions about early marriage and
FGM/C.
❑ In parallel to the Girls Dreams’
syllabus, the program works on
equipping the girls with many
skills like playing music, singing
,drawing and handicrafts like
needlework, accessories, that help
girls to create their profitable
small projects.
 Up to now, the number of Girls’ Dreams
beneficiaries are 25,000 girls who dropped out of
education

20% of them
convinced their 15% of them
20% of them
benefited from 25% of
parents not to decided not to
vocational them
carry out training and
marry early and
persuaded their returned
unhealthy started their
families of this to school
practices such own small
decision
as female businesses
circumcision

12
Through more than 15 years, ADEW developed Girls’
Dreams program to fulfil the girls’ needs. So we implement
the following components:

Curriculum
Vocational Literacy Legal
of “Girls’ Sports
training Classes Component
Dreams”
 ADEW staff members facilitate a
“Girls’ Dreams” specialized well-
structured curriculum, which consists
of 3 main parts.

 The curriculum has been updated

recently to keep pace with developments
in the community, and some subjects and
topics have been added after determining
Manual of “Girls’
knowledge needs targeted to girls from Dreams program” for
the program. Facilitators
 The parts of the curriculum are:

✓ Part I: Related to life skills and

personal relationships such as:
decision-making, participation, self-
confidence and communication, were
added current subjects such as: Girls inside the
classes discussing
sexual harassment and how the girls topics like
can address and fight it, Personal Nutrition and
hygiene. Personal hygiene
 Part II: is a healthy approach to
teach girls changing the wrong habits
which women grew up on such as:
FGM and early marriage.

 Another important part was added

Girls inside the
which is the importance of exercise classes discussing
and its impact on the girl's body and topics like FGM
fitness. and Personal
hygiene
 Part III: is the legal component
by which ADEW inform the girls
of their legal rights, and the
importance of official documents,
and the dangers of signing any
papers without carefully reading
them.
 With ADEW staff members facilitating, the
girls express themselves through various
activities.

 ADEW encourages distinguished girls

through giving them presents and gifts, and
that encourage girls to participate more
and more.
 The girls express themselves
through various activities as
we mentioned before- and
one of these activities is:

 Drawing and Colouring.

 Girls’ Dreams’ beneficiaries also express themselves
through:

 Singing.

• ADEW succeeded to
form a Corus team
from the targeted
girls of the program.
❑ ADEW gives the chance for the girls to express
themselves through:
▪ Acting.

❑ ADEW found that it motivates

their imagination and enhance
their skills.
• Participating in educational and
cultural trips is one of the
activities that ADEW was keen to
provide beside facilitating the
curriculum of “Girls’ Dreams”.

 Through the program ADEW organizes trips for girls to

learn more about Egypt and to increase their affiliation and
also to make them feel others’ care about them, because such
a feeling is absent in most cases within their families.
❑ AfterADEW implement the three mentioned parts of
the (Girls’ Dreams’ Program) curriculum, we begin to
give girls extra and integrated activities like:

✓ Vocational Training.
✓ Sports component.
✓ Literacy Classes.
✓ Some other extra activities through some of ADEW’s
programs.
❑ To meet the needs of the girls; (Girls’ Dreams’) provides
girls with skills to manufacture various and beautiful
handicrafts such as: embroidery, manufacturing of pins,
accessories, candles, Bamboo, wooden Products,
hairdressing, and printing.
❑ These skills help girls to
have their own small
projects that allow them
to have an income.
❑ ADEW accomplishes this through
skilled trainers and craftsmen.
 ADEW manage showing all these magnificent
products which the girls make through exhibitions.
Amira Sayyed –one of Girls’
Dreams’ beneficiaries said
that
The program provided me with
a bundle of skills and
knowledge, and I chose to
participate in the Wooden
handicrafts workshops, and
learnt how to manufacture
wooden products, and how to
market it.
I dream of having my own
project, and I will accomplish
this dream through what I
have learnt from “Girls’
Dreams”
 To meet the needs of the girls of “Girls’ Dreams”, after
giving them the curriculum, ADEW provides literacy classes
for the girls
 where ADEW signed a protocol with Egyptian assembly
of Adult Education (EAEA), to have the possibility of
opening literacy classes for young girls and women who
did not arrive to the age at which they can extract the
national ID card, as one of the condition to Join literacy
classes is to have a national ID card
 but ADEW through its good relationship with EAEA could
provide this service for the girls, by signing the mentioned
protocol.
Amira Abdel Azeem–one of
the program’s beneficiaries-
said that:

I dropped out from school and

after that I stayed for 3 years in
home doing nothing, then when I
heard about the program I
decided to participate, and the
days proved that my choice was
right, as I learnt a lot of useful
things and enhanced my skills.
 ADEW helps the girls in playing various sports and to exercise, in order to
provide them with confidence in themselves, to have fitness and healthy bodies, to
provide them with life skills required to help them in expressing themselves freely
and provide them with skills to work as a team.

 Through this component ADEW provide to girls membership in youth center to let
her go any time to play.

 Girls play basketball-handball-volleyball, and self-defense games, such as Kung

Fu, they also play Aerobics.

 The girls were so keen to prove to their parents that they can manage playing
sports and to study and to do their daily duties, and they succeeded to do so.
One of Girls’ Dreams’
beneficiaries said that:

For me, One of the most

important component of “Girls’
Dreams” program was playing
sports, as it increased my
physical fitness, and improved
my health.
I learned also team work, to
show a spirit of sportsmanship,
tolerance, and many other values
-10 girls entered a Kung Fu
championship at a New Mansheya club
(Alsanda Championship) and the ten
girls have passed the first phase. -
Images of certificates of the girls are
attached.

-4 girls participated in the Chinese

Victory Cup Championship at the
Tersana Club in Nasser City. Three of
them got Golden Medals, and one got a
Silver Medal
-10 girls participated in the Republic
Championship 2012. One girl won the
1st place and received the Golden
Medal.

-
 As we mentioned ADEW provide
girls with legal awareness, as a main
part of the curriculum parts.

 But besides this ADEW also helps

the girls in obtaining ID cards, thus
establishing their legal existence
through other program that ADEW
implement, which is “Legal
Program”. And that is to meet the
girls’ needs.