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GirlEngage: Designing gender transformative education programs

Mon, April 15, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Bay (Level 1), Bayview B

Proposal

GirlEngage: Based on the learnings from Plan’s education programs, Plan is designing a set of tools, GirlEngage, which puts girls and young women at the center of planning and advocacy efforts in education programming. At the planning stage, rapid assessments, simple surveys, key informant interviews, and feedback loops will enable participants to gather evidence around gender-related issues that impede their education – issues that may touch health, hygiene, economic empowerment, protection, and governance arenas. Then, with life skills and advocacy training, girls and young women will design how they will put that evidence to work as they advocate for change that addresses those issues. GirlEngage recognizes the importance of girls and young women working with all stakeholders in a community – individuals, families, other community members, and local government representatives – to achieve sustainable change. This holistic approach to address school transitions and drop-out promises to not only promote retention, but also drive transformative gender change.

Underlying tenets and action research: GirlEngage reflects Plan’s considerable learning and experience in community-based programming, beginning with basic tenets. First, learning includes understanding the power of an asset-based approach, an approach not intended “to empower” girls and young women, but rather to make it possible for girls and young women to understand how powerful they already are.

Second, Plan has learned how consequential it can be if program planning and, subsequently, monitoring and evaluation are built around a powerful community-based appreciative approach, Appreciative Planning and Action. APA provides girls and young women an opportunity to identify their successes regarding tackling problems and build on those successes. Through APA, girls and young women will learn how to capture their own insights about school transition and retention issues and to capture the insights of others. They will use these data to inform programming and advocacy, and to gauge change. Where possible, girls and young women will complement these qualitative insights with quantitative data around issues such as enrollment and drop-out. The inspiration for this model has come partially from Hear Our Voices, a longitudinal study undertaken by Plan involving 7,000 adolescent girls and boys, aged 12-16, in 11 countries, to understand how they view the issues that adolescent girls face today.

Research through CIES 2019: Plan is confident that GirlEngage will fulfill its promise to make a discernable difference in development programming around the world. That said, the potential reach and power of GirlEngage will benefit from gathering input from CIES meeting participants. First, the Round Table Discussion will seek input about: 1) ensuring the inclusion of the most marginalized girls and young women; 2) supporting girls and young women to advocate for their right to education – which is apt to challenge traditional gender norms – without putting them at risk 3) ensuring that the voices of traditionalists are heard, but that those voices do not drown out the planning and actions that girls and young women want to take regarding their education.

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