Removing barriers to adolescent girls' education

• In Event: Fostering sustainable education for the most marginalised – innovations and lessons learned from Afghanistan

Proposal

Half of girls enrolled in school drop out by grade 6, meaning that the majority of girls in Afghanistan do not continue their education up to secondary level. While many interventions are made at the lower primary level, STAGES II is one of the few programmes which focuses specifically on girls at the crucial point of transitioning from primary to secondary education. Barriers for girls to attend school intensify as girls reach adolescence due to lack of secondary schools, qualified female teachers, conservative views around girls’ mobility, early marriage and menstruation. The project directly provides education to 7,000 adolescent girls through ALP and LSCBE classes and reaches thousands more through government school support and extracurricular courses. STAGES uses intensive community mobilisation to address demand side barriers which include radio programming and forum theatre on themes such as early marriage and harassment of girls. FGDs in communities in Kabul demonstrate the effectiveness of forum theatre in engaging community members to discuss and reflect on difficult issues impacting girls’ access to education and disseminating these messages to others.
Based on a package collaboratively developed by CARE and Save the Children, the project combines interventions to build acceptance and support for adolescent girls among the wider community (including teachers and shura members) with interventions aimed at building confidence and leadership skills in the girls themselves to give them the skills to advocate for their own continued transition to further education, solve problems and act as leaders within their communities. Adapting CARE’s globally proven Youth Leadership approach, the project has established peer groups which also act as platforms to address taboo issues like menstruation.
To address the attendance and learning barriers caused by poor knowledge and management of menstruation, Save the Children has conducted formative research to inform project needs, and adapted an awareness raising package developed in West Africa combined with distribution of re-useable sanitary pads which girls are taught how to use and care for. The presentation will reflect on the findings of the needs assessment research as well as subsequent assessment of the new approach, challenges and recommendations for ongoing menstrual health programming in remote areas.

Authors

• Mumtaza Abdurazzakova, Save the Children

• Sediqullah Zameer, Save the Children