Follow-Up with Meeting IIE on HER Program Final Reports
The Higher Education Readiness (HER) Program, an initiative launched by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in Ethiopia in 2013, provides young women in secondary school from underserved communities with education and training to complete their secondary education and succeed at university or the workplace. It further empowers them to build confidence in their abilities and effectively communicate their needs and opinions.
Ms. Evgenia Valuy, Evaluation Officer at IIE’s Center for Academic Mobility Research and Impact, manages the HER Program’s monitoring and evaluation. In late January, she presented her methods and findings to BU Humphrey Fellows at IIE’s New York headquarters. The Fellows appreciated gaining an M&E perspective on this successful initiative, as they themselves are working to break the cycle of poverty and gender inequality within their respective countries.
The HER Program’s evaluation reports were recently made available to the public. On June 6th, Beatriz Gonzalez of Panama and Pakaiphone Syphoxay of Laos met with Ms. Valuy for a discussion of the reports and the lessons that the HER Program may hold for other countries. Here are three takeaways from that discussion:
Consider local need and leverage local expertise to address it.
For example, IIE works with local organizations in Addis Ababa to deliver entrepreneurship and reproductive health training to HER students and their parents and to train teachers in student-centered, gender-sensitive methods. These local experts bring into the HER Program a keen sensitivity to the context and needs of participating students.
Modify components to fit your program’s needs.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. From IIE’s experience with HER, we know that participating students found leadership and life skills trainings to be instrumental in building their self-esteem and developing effective communication skills. If you are planning to work with young professionals, these trainings may need to be modified to account for potential differences in age, professional background, and cultural differences in female behavior.
Implement the program component you can.
Successful, well-established programs have interdependent components that complement one another in producing program impact. Does that mean that a program is valuable only if you can fully replicate it? Absolutely not! Understand the local context, be realistic about your financial and human resources, and implement what you find most valuable and sustainable first.
Here are a few reflections on the meeting by Ms. Gonzalez, Ms. Syphoxay, and Ms. Valuy:
It has been important for us to learn more about HER project during our HHH Fellowship Year because it gave us ideas on ways to implement a similar program in our countries in order to empower girls and women. I think the HER Program could be replicated elsewhere to help girls and young women living in poverty to obtain the confidence and tools necessary to shift their situation, become empowered and change their economic situation.
—Beatriz Gonzalez
From the discussion I have gained detailed information about how to implement a similar project in my country, with perspectives on certain aspects that can be easily adopted and others that would need to be modified to the Laotian context.
—Pakaiphone Syphoxay
IIE welcomes collaboration among the participants of the IIE-managed programs and encourages learning from program evaluation. Sharing the HER program implementation and results with Humphrey Fellows has been a rewarding experience. It is delightful to see how the HER program’s impact is expanding beyond HER girls and their families to other IIE participants and their home communities. We are proud of our alumni and are inspired to see their ideas grow into new programming to improve the lives of girls worldwide.
—Evgenia Valuy
