The ABCs of Empowerment

If you’re reading this now, you know your ABCs. But in rural Egypt, where Kotn was born, too many children don’t. 32% of rural Egyptians don't know how to read and write, 70% of whom are women.

Literacy has always been core to us at Kotn. Since day one, we’ve been on a mission: create sustainable growth in the communities that create our products. The biggest instrument of change? Education for the next generation. With the current gender gap in education access, prioritizing girls’ education was vital to us in addressing inequality and creating intergenerational economic growth.

Here’s why an investment in girls’ education is an investment in the future.

Currently, of the world’s 773 million illiterate adults, 2/3 are women. Due to cultural norms, violence, lack of safe transportation and lack of access to feminine hygiene products, many girls and young women never get the chance to attend school.

This lack of learning opportunities results in a gender disparity that begins as children and widens through life. While there have been global improvements in literacy rates, this gender gap has remained unchanged over the past 20 years, both in the developed and developing world.

In partnership with a local Egyptian NGO, Misr El Kheir Foundation, we’re reinvesting proceeds from every Kotn order to provide the children in our farming communities with safe, convenient, and quality education with the ABCs Project.

With every purchase, your orders fund the build-out and operations of primary school infrastructure, covering school fees, books and supplies, furniture, water and electricity, technical training and salaries for facilitators, and maintenance for the roads that link communities to our schools.

To empower girls and young women to experience equal opportunity, we’ve prioritized a 2:1 girl to boy student ratio. So far, we’ve built ten schools and funded five more, and our enrollment sits at 88% girls. By granting girls access to primary education, we’re empowering them to pursue higher levels, like secondary school and beyond.

By opening a door for one child, together we will open a door for their families, their communities, and generations to come.