(CNN) — A science camp set up by a teenager is helping disadvantaged girls in Jordan gain confidence to aim for a university education.
The two-week SciGirls — for 44 talented 12-15-year-olds from the Jabal Al-Natheef district of Amman — has been set up by 17-year-old Palestinian Canadian, Yara Sifri.
Sifri, whose parents grew up in Jordan, had the idea for the camp and raised 22,000 Jordanian dinars (approximately $30,000) sponsorship to make it happen.
The girls are taken daily by bus to a school in another part of Jordan to study electronics, robotics and math through chess. In between classes, they learn art and soccer.
They went to see each family and asked them to allow their girls to take part.
According to a UNESCO Institute for Statistics report in 2010 on women in science, only 21% of researchers in Jordan are female, compared with 34% on average in Europe. read here
Categories: Asia, Jordan, Science and Technology, Women Rights
Marriage has some thing to do with lower number of female researchers in many Asian countries. How often we see a female doctor not working at all.