By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 13 1999 (IPS)

More and more girls are going to school in Benin’s southwestern region of Couffo, thanks to a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative which distributes “dry rations” to impoverished parents.

Known in Pakistan and Morocco as “Food for Learning”, and “Food Aid In The Service of Instruction”, the project, launched in Benin in November 1998, offers parents a 50-kilogramme bag of rice and a 4-litre can of cooking oil for every girl register at school.

Many poor parents, who normally would resist sending their daughters to school, are now enrolling four or five of them with the promise of food for each one. Some expressed astonishment at the large amount of food they receive, according to the WFP Representative in Benin, Hippolyte Togonou.

In just one school year (1998-1999), the number of girls enrolled in ten village schools under the WFP project rose considerably, even reversing the previous boy-girl ratio in favour of girls.

For example, the number of girls at the public primary school in Dohodji rose from 25 to 107, an increase of 328 percent. WFP’s educational campaign was particularly successful in this village.

In neighbouring villages of Gnigbandjime and Dekandji II, the number of girls rose from 19 to 72 and from 21 to 55, increases of 279 and 161.9 percent, respectively.

In the ten pilot schools where the WFP project was launched, inspired by the excellent results achieved in Morocco, the rate of attendance by girls had never before reached the 30 percent mark, or barely one girl for every four boys.

Some 92 percent of the 768 girls enrolled in school during the first trimester maintained the attendance required by the project for their families to continue receiving the dry rations benefit.

According to the 1998 WFP annual report, the project supported efforts by Beninois officials to break down certain traditional cultural barriers against the education of girls and their integration into modern society.

“For the hungriest and poorest parents, the promise of food assistance is sometimes the only way they’ll allow their girls to go to school”, says WFP’s executive director, Catherine Bertini.

Today, many parents in the ten villages where the programme is underway, the WFP says, would allow their daughters to continue school even if the free distribution of rations were to end.

Indeed, an increasing number of mothers now say they “no longer consider the education of their daughters as a waste of time and money, but as a step toward improving the quality of their lives”.

Togonou says WFP will continue to encourage girls’ school attendance in the ten villages in Couffo.

He says research to choose more pilot schools for the “food aid for the education of girls” programme is already underway in Atacora, another of Benin’s poorer regions, in the northwest, where the rate of enrollment of girls in school is even worse less than 20 percent.

Bertini hopes that once the practice to send girls to school becomes a habit, “the old prejudices will crumble, and girls will be able to pursue their education even further”. “The future for girls, women, their families and communities will continue to glow brighter and brighter”.

Excerpt:

By Ali Idrissou-Toure
COTONOU, Nov 11 1999 (IPS)

More and more girls are going to school in Benin’s southwestern region of Couffo, thanks to a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative which distributes “dry rations” to impoverished parents.

Known in Pakistan and Morocco as “Food for Learning”, and “Food Aid In The Service of Instruction”, the project, launched in Benin in November 1998, offers parents a 50-kilogramme bag of rice and a 4-litre can of cooking oil for every girl register at school.

Many poor parents, who normally would resist sending their daughters to school, are now enrolling four or five of them with the promise of food for each one. Some expressed astonishment at the large amount of food they receive, according to the WFP Representative in Benin, Hippolyte Togonou.

In just one school year (1998-1999), the number of girls enrolled in ten village schools under the WFP project rose considerably, even reversing the previous boy-girl ratio in favour of girls.

For example, the number of girls at the public primary school in Dohodji rose from 25 to 107, an increase of 328 percent. WFP’s educational campaign was particularly successful in this village.

In neighbouring villages of Gnigbandjime and Dekandji II, the number of girls rose from 19 to 72 and from 21 to 55, increases of 279 and 161.9 percent, respectively.

In the ten pilot schools where the WFP project was launched, inspired by the excellent results achieved in Morocco, the rate of attendance by girls had never before reached the 30 percent mark, or barely one girl for every four boys.

Some 92 percent of the 768 girls enrolled in school during the first trimester maintained the attendance required by the project for their families to continue receiving the dry rations benefit.

According to the 1998 WFP annual report, the project supported efforts by Beninois officials to break down certain traditional cultural barriers against the education of girls and their integration into modern society.

“For the hungriest and poorest parents, the promise of food assistance is sometimes the only way they’ll allow their girls to go to school”, says WFP’s executive director, Catherine Bertini.

Today, many parents in the ten villages where the programme is underway, the WFP says, would allow their daughters to continue school even if the free distribution of rations were to end.

Indeed, an increasing number of mothers now say they “no longer consider the education of their daughters as a waste of time and money, but as a step toward improving the quality of their lives”.

Togonou says WFP will continue to encourage girls’ school attendance in the ten villages in Couffo.

He says research to choose more pilot schools for the “food aid for the education of girls” programme is already underway in Atacora, another of Benin’s poorer regions, in the northwest, where the rate of enrollment of girls in school is even worse less than 20 percent.

Bertini hopes that once the practice to send girls to school becomes a habit, “the old prejudices will crumble, and girls will be able to pursue their education even further”. “The future for girls, women, their families and communities will continue to glow brighter and brighter”.

Excerpt: