Our Story

In 2006, rock climbers and longtime friends, Lizzy Scully and Heidi Wirtz, embarked on a climbing expedition in the Karakoram Mountain Range of Northern Pakistan. While climbing, Lizzy had a near-death accident, grounding their expedition after only two days of climbing. Scully and Wirtz decided to spend their remaining ten days in the country exploring other valleys in the area and ended up at the village Khane in the Hushe Valley, where their expedition cook resided. While visiting Khane, they discovered a wide discrepancy between school amenities afforded to boys and amenities provided to girls. The boys had a teacher, a four-room school, and clean grounds, while the girls had two dilapidated rooms, a schoolyard in disrepair, (with feces in the backyard), and an unqualified local teacher with only a few years of education herself.

Struck by the lack of opportunities for women in the Khane village, Heidi and Lizzy committed themselves to ensure that women and girls in rural and under-resourced communities received equal, unrestricted access to quality education. That same year, they co-founded Girls Education International with a mission to partner with communities in mountainous regions of the world to support educational initiatives for girls and women.

Today, Girls Ed partners with Bedari, a Pakistan-based NGO, which has proven to be a rich and impactful partnership. For the past eight years, Bedari and Girls Ed have worked to increase access to education for girls in remote regions of Pakistan. Girls Ed is committed to safely supporting the transport needs of girls from their home villages to their schools. We have supported as many as 100 girls at a time and currently support 60 girls in the Chawkal district.

In addition, we launched a new project in Tanzania by partnering with Project Wezesha. Project Wezesha has been working in Tanzania since 2009 and among their accomplishments are the construction of a secondary school in the village of Mgaraganza Village, the completion of school toilets, desks, and chairs, and a scholarship program that has supported students through secondary school, high school, vocational training, and even university. As a partner of Girls Ed, Project Wezesha manages the Girls Ed scholarship program and academic study camps.

Mission & Vision

Mission: The mission of Girls Education International is to expand and support educational opportunities for underserved women and girls in remote and developing regions of the world.

Vision: Girls Education International envisions a world where educational opportunities for women and girls are equal to those typically afforded boys and men, and thus provide the foundation for healthier and prosperous societies that reflect their unique cultural differences.

We believe

Girls Education International is guided by a set of core beliefs related to girls’ education.

All girls deserve access to education.

We believe all girls should have unrestricted and unconditional access to the best possible education available in their community.

All girls deserve to feel safe at school.

We believe girls should be able to attend school without fearing for their safety on the journey and in their classroom.

Education changes the world.

We believe education equips girls to make positive changes in their homes, community, and the world.

Local knowledge is key for sustainability.

We believe that partnering with local stakeholders and leveraging community knowledge creates lasting change.

Collaboration is the foundation for success.

We believe collaboration and relationship-building lead to unique approaches and solutions and foster a healthy organization.