DEF Invests in Education on Three Continents

RAPAPORT… The Diamond Empowerment Fund (DEF) has granted
its largest-ever award, to be shared among nine beneficiaries across three continents.




The $470,000 training and education grant,
released early last week, is designed to support girls’ education,
entrepreneurship and youth empowerment across India, Africa and Canada.



Projects include funding for a new science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) program — the DEF’s first scholarship
of this kind — which will be extended to pupils from the Ambaba Girls School in
Surat, where 90% of natural diamonds are cut and polished.



Other grants include support for girls’ education
in Tanzania, via the Flaviana Matata Foundation, and funding for higher-education
scholarships in the Botswana Top Achievers Program.



The award also features additional backing for
technical-training scholarships and entrepreneurship studies for youth from
indigenous communities in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT).



DEF debuted its first educational grants for
young people in NWT in April this year.



Image: Nancy
Orem Lyman, executive director of the Diamond Empowerment Fund, with principal Krupaliben Shah and other teachers at Ambaba Girls School in Surat, India. (Diamond Empowerment Fund)