philanthropy / 2026-10-17

Keeping girls in school takes more than an open classroom door

UNESCO’s 2026 education prize recognizes projects in Morocco and Peru that connect learning with confidence, health and future opportunity. Project Soar offers a practical example of locally led support.

A classroom in Morocco in an archival 2018 photograph; not identified as a Project Soar programme site. — إسكواردو, via Wikimedia Commons; October 2018. Unmodified. · CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

An available school place is only one part of access to education. A girl also needs the freedom, support and confidence to keep using it. Two initiatives recognized by UNESCO this month put that wider understanding into practice: Project Soar in a Bag in Morocco and CARE Peru’s Girls with Opportunities project.

UNESCO presented its 2026 Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education in Paris on October 9, with each laureate receiving US$50,000. The announcement was updated October 16, but the award itself is a week-old development, not a new October 17 event. We are widening the news window to examine the approaches behind the recognition.

In Morocco, Project Soar supports underserved adolescent girls through trained local women facilitators, menstrual-health support and community engagement. UNESCO describes a model that addresses barriers including child marriage and helps girls plan their futures. In Peru, CARE’s recognized project supports rural and Indigenous girls in completing secondary education and building routes toward further study and decent work.

Project Soar’s own programme description makes the delivery model tangible. Its portable curriculum contains 25 workshops organized around five themes: value, voice, body, rights and path. Two trained local women can work with a group of twenty girls. The kit includes learning materials, journals, evaluation tools and menstrual-health supplies, combining information with opportunities to practise skills.

The programme continues beyond a lesson. Girl-led clubs provide space for leadership and peer support, while community dialogues involve parents and other adults in addressing obstacles to girls’ education. The significance is not that outsiders supply a single answer, but that local women and girls have structured ways to identify problems and shape responses.

Recognition is not the same thing as proof that every element will work equally well everywhere. UNESCO reports encouraging participant outcomes, but an award announcement is not a controlled evaluation. Supporters should ask how attendance, retention, safety and girls’ own experiences are measured, and how programmes adapt to a community’s priorities.

Project Soar’s official get-involved page invites local organizations to discuss partnerships and individuals to contribute professional skills, sponsor a programme site or organize a fundraiser. Its official donation page provides a separate giving route. These are concrete ways to explore support without assuming that unsolicited travel or direct contact with participating children would be helpful.

Featured photograph: a classroom in Morocco, uploaded in 2018. It is a contextual archive image, not a photograph of Project Soar participants or the UNESCO award ceremony.

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Sources

Original reporting synthesis by The Raines Foundation, based on the sources above.