Interventions

Sphoorthi-Empowering adolescent girls through peer leader role models

Millions of girls don’t get opportunities to live out their true potential. They are married early and begin child bearing at ages when they are not ready to be mothers. Globally, one in 3 women aged 20-24 were married before they were 18. In India: 47 per cent girls aged 20-24 were married before their 18th birthday; a fifth of babies are born to girls aged 15-19; and almost half of maternal deaths occur among girls and young women aged 15-24.

Context

KHPT believes that existing measures to promote girls’ welfare, which attempt to change behaviour through incentives, services, and penalties, have only limited influence because such measures do not compellingly demonstrate and explain the importance of girls’ education, proper care, and equal treatment, and do not apply the power of peer pressure to inspire behaviour change through emulation. Peers influence people’s attitudes, aspirations, and behaviours, particularly with respect to schooling, yet a consultation with marginalized adolescent girls in northern Karnataka found that they have few local peer role models to raise girls’ aspirations and inspire them to delay marriage and stay in school. Similarly, parents lack peer role models who provide leadership and champion equitable treatment of children, girls’ education, and respect for girls’ wishes.

Given these gaps, KHPT has evolved a potential strategy for improving disadvantaged girls’ prospects through the cultivation of local role models of adolescent girls and parents who demonstrate and champion among their peers the importance of girls’ education, delayed marriage, improved nutrition, and better hygiene.

Implementation

KHPT expands its work in the area of adolescent girls’ empowerment through this new intervention, the Adolescent Girls Project, with 3600 girls from disadvantaged communities in Koppal district, in northeast Karnataka, India. Funded by the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI), the project will be implemented from 2015 – 2018 in 42 villages.

Using a peer leaders model, the project will focus on creating and empowering role models from within the communities. To do this, the programme will work with adolescent girls’ role models to:

1.  increase their rates of secondary school completion by 80
2. reduce the rates of marriage among them by 50%
3. increase the levels of Body Mass Index (BMI) and nutrition 50%

Further, the intervention will also work with girls from the peer groups of these role models to:

1. increase their rates of secondary school completion by 25%
2. reduce the proportion of married girls by 15%,
3. increase the levels of BMI and nutrition by 15%

The project aims to mobilise and train 640 adolescent girls and 1280 parents as role models who will demonstrate and champion the importance and benefits of girls’ education and equitable gender norms among their peers.

• Samata-Keeping girls in secondary school

  Adolescent girls who do not complete their education are particularly vulnerable to HIV and other health risks. Structural barriers cut short the education of many adolescent girls belonging to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe families in northern Karnataka, India. Many girls drop out of school as a result of poverty, early marriage, a tradition of sex work and the under-valuing of girls’ education. Samata , meaning equality, aims to reduce HIV risk among adolescent girls in Bijapur and Bagalkot Districts, in north Karnataka, by increasing their rates of secondary school enrolment and completion.

• Context

  The likelihood of girls from scheduled castes and tribe (SC/ST) families in northern Karnataka completing secondary school is sharply diminished by family poverty, gender discrimination, the traditions of early marriage and devadasi dedication, boys’ actions and attitudes towards girls, inadequate measures to meet girls’ needs at schools and by community authorities and education officials to enforce girls’ right to education. The rates of underage marriage are over 30% among girls from SC/ST communities in Bijapur and Bagalkot districts. Girls who drop out of school are more vulnerable to HIV infection and other health problems, will have a larger, less healthy family, earn less than their better educated peers, and lack voice, agency and are disengaged from larger community issues.

• Implementation

  Samata is a programme to improve the quality of life of adolescent girls from marginalised communities in northern Karnataka, India, by keeping girls in school, delaying marriage, and reducing entry into sex work. Reaching 3,600 adolescent girls from 1,800 families in 119 villages and 69 high schools, Samata aims to increase the proportion of adolescent girls who enter formal secondary education, complete 10th Standard, delay their marriage and sexual debut until after 10th Standard.

  To increase the numbers of girls who enroll in and complete high school, Samata:

  • provides special tuition, career counselling and leadership training to improve girls’ academic success and broaden their aspirations
  • establishes reflection sessions for girls to share experiences and build solidarity and confidence
  • sensitises parents to value girls and recognise the importance of educating them
  • links families to government schemes that provide incentives for educating girls
  • uses sports to encourage boys to respect girls and appreciate their rights
  • trains SDMCs and school staff to institute measures to increase girls’ safety and academic success
  • supports community structures to understand the importance of girls’ education and take action.

  KHPT is implementing Samata from July 2013 to 2017, in partnership with the Government of Karnataka and the World Bank with the support of UK Aid and ViiV Healthcare. During this period, STRIVE partners KHPT and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) are evaluating Samata’s impact on adolescent girls’ high school entry and retention, as well as on their vulnerability to HIV.

   

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