Press Releases

Announcing A Groundbreaking Solution To Supporting Young Women: AccelHERate

[Washington, DC, 10/11/2024] – Grameen Foundation proudly announces the launch of AccelHERate, an innovative solution enabling new pathways for young women. Building on our visionary HER Framework, AccelHERate provides tailored support that starts with household change, strengthened by financial literacy and connections to reproductive health services.

The problem at hand is vast: millions of adolescent girls lack equal opportunities for learning and development due to entrenched social norms, inadequate support systems, limited attention and lack of resources. Many are at risk of being left out of the digital economy and future job markets.

Recognizing the urgent need to address this critical issue, Grameen Foundation is taking bold action with AccelHERate. This comprehensive initiative aims to raise awareness, provide support services, and reach one million young women by 2030.

Zubaida Bai, Grameen Foundation President and CEO, emphasized the urgency and importance of this initiative: "Enabling young women with resources and tools not only supports individual economic independence but also contributes to broader economic growth by strengthening households and uplifting entire communities out of poverty."

The launch comes at a pivotal time when the world is seeing girls between the ages of 15 and 24 already becoming mothers, shouldering the financial burdens of their families, and forced into exclusion from their local economies. Young women, especially those navigating challenges like pandemics and climate change, face particularly acute and accelerating inequality. Grameen Foundation seeks to create a future where young women have the tools and agency needed to thrive.

AccelHERate will focus on several key objectives:

1. Family Engagement: Through targeted household dialogue training, skills, and discussions, AccelHERate will ensure that all members of the family realize the importance of young women developing agency and decision making, ultimately leading to sustainable community change.

2. Access to Financial Services: Strategic and holistic connection to formal financial services is required to end the historic exclusion of young women from local economies. AccelHERate will partner with financial service providers and product creators to build new pathways, lower interest rates, and create equitable products and opportunities for young women, resulting in reframed perspectives on the role of gender in communities.

3. Entrepreneurship Training: Enabling young women with the tools they need requires systemic change. AccelHERate will utilize Grameen’s long term financial literacy and entrepreneurship training to ensure that young women have the information, training, and business management skills that they need to succeed while also developing long-term solutions to the systemic and social barriers that keep young women in cycles of poverty.

4. Linkages to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services: Building a community of support is essential for the success of young women. AccelHERate will connect young women and their partners to appropriate health services and support household dialogues around bias, household and family decision making.

Zubaida Bai added, “Young women are the innovators and leaders of tomorrow. By investing in their potential today, we are setting the foundation for a more equitable, prosperous, and inclusive world."

For more information about AccelHERate and how you can get involved, please visit grameenfoundation.org or contact Rebecca Abbey at rabbey@grameenfoundation.org.

About Grameen Foundation: Grameen is a global non-profit focused on ending poverty by enabling systemic change for women and girls at the intersection of gender, climate, and financial inclusion. Investing in women through Grameen’s HER Framework sees sustainable change realized and achieves rapid progress towards our United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Contact:

Rebecca Abbey

Grameen Foundation

rabbey@grameenfoundation.org

grameenfoundation.org