Mission

OWAY is an advocacy group that aims to enable women from the least developed and conflict-ridden societies to pursue undergraduate degrees at the University of Oxford.In particular, we hope to make it possible, for the first time ever, for women from Afghanistan to pursue undergraduate degrees at the University of Oxford.We believe this method is an essential tool to increase social mobility between those most poor who only have access to secondary schools but still at risk for child marriage and taken out of school, and those most priviledged, who have access to post-graduate scholarships and beyond.If these women have access to undergraduate education at Oxford, they will have:greater economical and political value, and thus power to make changes on the national level;have the backing of the university name, which allows them to be taken seriously when they enter politics, law or business, and successfully enforce policies rather than merely standing in as token puppets;and contribute to greater female participation in their countries’ economies and societies, which has the potential to disempower extremist thinking, groups and terrorists, as shown by the U.S. Pentagon.In regard to the last point, we believe that educating young women is a tool for increasing global security against extremist groups. In particular, as the 2014 NATO troop withdrawal comes to an end in Afghanistan, there is a growing tension that talks and potential gains by the Taliban may reverse the strides taken to increase women's emancipation in Afghanistan. Having a higher population of educated women with international backing will help reverse these threats.

Category

Education and Skills

Additional Information

OWAY’s vision to enable young women from the least developed and most conflict-ridden regions to pursue undergraduate degrees at the University of Oxford. This journey starts from their time in secondary school to the period of time they spend near the end of their studies at the University of Oxford. We have broken down this journey into three steps across the development of our beneficiaries. We identify each component and show how we plan to do that. Part I: OWAY’s involvement in secondary schools process In our first step, we plan to partner with organisations working with female students to help them access the University of Oxford’s undergraduate degree programs, and soon after those of other top educational institutions. This assistance will come in the form of mock interviews, courses in culture shock in the classroom such as learning how to debate and challenge the professor, and assistance in navigating the application system. These forms of assistance will involve working with these organisations to ensure the girls have the standardised tests, academics, and presentation skills to access the University of Oxford. The organisations with whom we hope to partner are leading institutions in these societies working with the educational advancement of girls. Part II: Providing funding for undergraduate degrees at the University of Oxford In our second step, we hope to provide small grants of up to £5000 to alleviate the financial hardship of our beneficiaries. Preference will be given to women who are at a financial and social disadvantage, where discriminatory State policies and/or financial issues deprive girls from pursuing a university degree. In addition, our ideal beneficiary will also have the intention of returning to her country of origin, to develop the social, economical, and judicial areas of her country. During their studies, we will continually monitor the progress of our girls, by providing additional support in the form of mentorship, social activities, and connecting them to worldwide networks to further their goals. Part III: Leading beneficiaries toward their campaigns post-graduation In our third step, we hope to continue mentoring and building the clout of our beneficiaries to nurture them with networks and contacts. Firstly, we hope to bolster the leadership capabilities of the women under our scholarship program beyond their studies, by providing bespoke mentorship training for them during their undergraduate studies, in order to use their Oxford degree to pursue groundbreaking development projects in their countries. For example, our best candidate, Ashfa, hopes to use her degree in Experimental Psychology to go back to Pakistan and pioneer a new and urgent mental health system in Pakistan to help women recover from the psychological damages due to terrorism. This sort of system is not readily available in her country due to mental health issues being a social stigma. Yet this is a pressing issue that affects most women and children in Pakistan. For example, through our advocacy scheme, we could pair up Ashfa with mentors from Doctors without Borders to garner volunteers to train emerging newly graduated or student psychiatrists and doctors in Pakistan, McKinsey to provide training on partnering with existing hospitals to add in these branches, and the NGO Tostan to help Ashfa learn important techniques in slowly providing newer perspective to the behaviour and old traditions in her society.