Life Skills Educational program and its impact on boys

• In Event: Don't forget about the boys: Educational equity in LMIC Contexts.

Proposal

Gender inequalities and harmful gender norms impact children of all genders, including boys, and influence the ways in which children and adults relate to others throughout their lives. Early adolescence (10-14) is an especially important time in boys’ lives, as changes associated with puberty reshape gender relations and self-perception. And as children are spending more time in educational settings than anywhere else outside their homes, schools are crucial sites for learning and developing gender-equal norms and behaviors.
Promoting gender-equal relations and attitudes among boys can profoundly improve their life outcomes as well as the lives of their future partners and children. Providing a safe space for boys within educational settings, where they can question harmful gender norms and practice gender equal behaviors is important for their own health and wellbeing as well as for girls, women and movements calling for a more gender equal society.
In 2021, we developed a Life Skills Educational program to help boys examine and challenge the harmful gender norms and stereotypes that shape their lives. The two-year program has been piloted in Cambodia (2021-2024), reaching 800 7th and 8th grade boys across four schools in the far northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey.. The program was collaboratively delivered by five facilitators and five schoolteachers from pilot schools. The curriculum was designed through a gender transformative approach and includes 34 sessions under the following six themes: 1. Gender roles and division of household roles, 2. Gender norms, masculinity, and relationships, 3. Puberty, sexuality and health, 4. Addressing conflict and harassment in my school and community, 5. Succeeding in school and life, and 6. Mental health and emotional disclosure. To support changes beyond the implementation of the curriculum, Room to Read conducted several activities which included: a mixed gender study group, a monthly facilitated discussion on topics chosen with the boys, home visits and meetings with parents, training for school management, teachers and facilitators, and training for parents on gender-equitable parenting practices.
Early results show a significant increase in gender knowledge among boys on gender-based roles, gender-based violence, perception of masculinity, and puberty, sexuality and health. Boys also showed promising shifts in their attitudes towards gender equal roles and behaviors at home, reporting taking on additional chores to alleviate unequal care duties of women and girls in their households, and life skills, particularly ‘Expressing and managing emotions’ have shown statistically significant advancement for boys.
This presentation will provide learnings from the final evaluation of the program, focusing not only on its impact on boys, but also on the learnings from implementing the programs in different modalities (teachers vs. facilitators) and diving into some of the adjustments that were needed. The presentation will also explain how those learnings have been used to influence the organization’s current and future programming in this area. Learnings from the Cambodia pilot have in fact been incorporated into similar programs that are currently being planned in South Asia and Africa.

Author

• Lucina Di Meco, Room to Read