OUR MISSION & HISTORY
A project of Apache Corporation, Springboard Girls Schools was launched under the leadership of the company’s founder and former CEO, Raymond Plank, in 2004. Springboard is an ambitious community project with the mission to educate girls in remote areas of Egypt. In many rural villages, the lack of local access to education for young girls had resulted in limited opportunities for many students to attend school.
Springboard and Apache Corporation partnered with the Egyptian National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) to build one room primary schools in remote areas of three governates: Fayoum, Minya and Giza.
Today, Springboard works with the Ministry of Education in Egypt in support of the Egyptian government’s Girls Education Initiative. Apache Corporation continues to be a primary funding source for the organization.
“The capacity of the individual is infinite.
Limitations are largely of habit, convention,
acceptance of things as they are,
fear or lack of self-confidence.”
CREATING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
FOR GIRLS: Through the Springboard program, 201 mostly one-room girls’ schools have been built in Egypt. Since 2004, Springboard has enabled more than 15,000 girls to learn how to read and write. Nearly 85% of the girls who begin their education at a Springboard school will graduate to secondary schools, and several have advanced to pursue university and advanced degrees.
FOR BOYS: Although the Springboard initiative targets education for girls, the schools are also open to boys.
FOR TEACHERS: In 2018, Springboard began a partnership with the American University in Cairo to provide training and development courses for more than 400 teachers and 200 supervisors working in the Springboard schools. The 90-hour Teacher Development Program, conducted in Arabic, aims to enrich teachers’ human, social and psychological skills, empowering them to help create active and well-rounded citizens. Teacher development focuses on professionalism, learning theories, assessment methods, classroom management and active citizenship. Teachers and supervisors are also introduced to concepts such as resiliency, autonomy, innovation, lifelong learning, multi-grade teaching and the different stages of human development.
201
Schools built
600+
Teachers and supervisors professionally trained
5,000+
Students enrolled annually
15,000+
Girls have learned to read and write
