Education for Life

This project involved teaching functional literacy and numeracy skills to out of school girls and helping them transition back to formal schools, to vocational skills training, or linking them to master artisans or entrepreneurship communities. The project also aimed to protect girls from sexual, domestic and other types of violence, working with the department of children services, local leaders such as chiefs and village elders and forming local safeguarding committee members to protect girls right from their communities.

The Education for Life project is implemented by a consortium of three partners, VSO Kenya, Leonard Cheshire and ActionAid. These organisations work with local nonprofit organizations to support project implementation. The project targets 5,000 out-of-school girls (OOSGs), including girls with disabilities, aged between 10-19 years, from marginalized communities and low-income households. The overall objective of the project is to improve girls’ life chances through learning, transition and sustainability. The out-of-school girls receive basic literacy, numeracy, and life skill training offered within catch-up centres (CuCs), to improve their learning outcomes and self-efficacy.

Upon successfully completing the learning process in the catch-up centres, the OOSGs are supported to transition to either one of the following pathways: 1) formal schooling; 2) vocational training centers; 3) entrepreneurship, and 4) apprenticeships. To improve the quality of teaching offered to the girls, the programme also trains Educator Facilitators, who deliver sessions in the catch-up centres. Life mentors and Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) are trained on safeguarding and Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) in order to provide psychosocial support and life skills training to girls. The project also works with government and community-based organizations to build strong and active partnerships for strengthening girls’ education and for sustaining project’s gains.