Amplifying girls’ voices through holistic education

• In Event: Holistic approaches to enabling learning environments in Africa: elevating the voices of children, youth and local stakeholders

Proposal

While there is widespread research on the barriers to girls’ education, there is still a dearth of knowledge regarding how to improve knowledge and shift attitudes and behaviors for girls’ educational experiences to be positively transformed. Research has revealed that some of the specific evidence gaps are around prevention of school-related gender-based violence, inadequate life skills, safe spaces and social connections (Psaki, Haberland, Mensch, Woyczynski, Chuang, 2022). Our holistic education approach implemented in Mozambique addresses these gaps by protesting the normative perceptions and systems around the adolescent girl that perpetuate girls’ dropout from school and continue to disempower them to achieve positive life outcomes. We partner with government, schools, and communities to strengthen the ecosystem around the girl for her to amplify her voice, exercise her rights and demand better services.
Nampula and Zambézia provinces are noticeably below the national average, particularly in terms of girls’ enrolment in upper primary and lower secondary (MINED, 2019). Girls in both provinces are affected by poverty, poor teaching quality, early marriage, early pregnancy and school-related gender-based violence. Our adolescent girls’ education program uses a whole school transformative approach to address various barriers to girls' education in these provinces. According to the Global Monitoring Report (UNESCO, 2015), higher domestic workloads for girls in these regions are also common reasons for lower rates of school retention among girls. Through our holistic intervention we simultaneously address social norms that devalue education for girls, while also focusing on systemic issues, such as the lack of WASH conditions in schools for menstrual hygiene management, weak violence prevention and response mechanisms, the lack of female school directors, pedagogical practices and curriculum that are not gender responsive.
By engaging with researchers, policymakers and practitioners we seek to leverage the power of collective advocacy for girls’ holistic learning opportunities and contribute to the global body of knowledge on prevention of SRGBV, girls’ empowerment, gender transformative and safe school environments for girls to thrive and continue their education by sharing lessons learned, best practices and innovative approaches to address structures and social norms to challenge discriminatory practices to create a more inclusive educational environment.
The presentation will focus on discussing the socio-cultural norms and structural barriers that drive girls’ drop out according to this project’s baseline survey in 2022. Although the project is in year 2, by addressing the ecosystem around adolescent girls we are seeing preliminary results through mentorship sessions resulting in adolescent girl-led action plans that are improving the link between the school and community, enhancing equal access to sexual and reproductive health services, improving gender-based violence multi-sectoral response services (reaching 4,325 girls and boys) and positively shifting knowledge, attitudes and practices, which is contributing to transforming life opportunities for girls.

Author

• Alisa Michelle Phillips, World Vision