Dalia and Isis

Dalia overcame many obstacles in her life. When Dalia joined the Valuable Girl Project as a “Big Sister,” she became the role model for another girl who faced similar obstacles.

At the age of 11, Dalia was living in a remote village in Upper Egypt and had never enrolled in school. Since she was so old, she had little opportunity of joining school left. Still, Dalia overcame all odds, became literate, and entered school.

Not only that, Dalia decided that she wanted to help other girls just like her. In the Valuable Girl Project she became a “Big Sister” to Isis. Isis was an extremely shy young girl with tangled hair. She did not know how to read even though she was in primary school.

With an older girl like Dalia to set an example of how she, too, could succeed, Isis soon started to take better care of herself, washing her face every day and combing her hair. In addition, she started to make progress in her reading abilities. Before long, she went from illiteracy to being able to recognize and write all letters of the alphabet.

Dalia and Isis are just two of the nearly 500 young Egyptian women and girls who have been empowered through Coptic Orphans’ Valuable Girl Project.