Go Girls Connect!

  • P Project/Program

I Inactive

Key Information

Go Girls Connect! is a digital adaptation of the Protect Our Youth (POY) program, funded by USAID under the DREAMS Innovations Challenge program in Eswatini. Go Girls Connect! leverages mobile-based technology to build digital competency and empower girls with critical life skills and protective assets to navigate challenging gender norms and advocate for their human rights. This life skills and assets program, delivered over mobile phones directly to girls with supporting in person monthly club sessions, is an interactive, skills-based program to build resilience and decrease risks that make girls vulnerable to school drop-out, early marriage, teen pregnancy, HIV, STIs and more. Cell-Ed adapted the POY curriculum for the Cell-Ed digital learning platform. Go Girls Connect! incorporates a digital Early Warning System for girls to self-screen being at-risk of dropping out of school, and also a digital self-screening tool to enable girls to identify themselves as victims of gender-based violence. These digital tools are linked to robust on-the-ground Response Protocols to provide the key supports and services required to keep girls in school and access post abuse services where needed.


Lead Implementing Organization(s)

Location(s)

Sub-Saharan Africa

Eswatini

Government Affiliation

Non-governmental program

Years

2019 - 2021

Partner(s)

cell-ed

Ministry Affiliation

Unknown

COVID-19 Response

Unknown

Geographic Scope

National

Areas of Work Back to Top

Education areas

Attainment

  • Secondary completion

Other skills

  • Financial literacy
  • Life skills/sexuality education
  • Rights/empowerment education
  • Social and emotional learning

Quality

  • School-related gender-based violence

Skills

  • Other academic performance-related

Cross-cutting areas

  • Adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • Digital literacy
  • Empowerment
  • Gender equality
  • HIV and STIs
  • Mentorship
  • Other aspects of sexual and reproductive health
  • Sexual harassment & coercion
  • Violence (at home, in relationships)

Program participants

Target Audience(s)

Girls (both in school and out of school), Youth

Age

14 - 24

School Enrolment Status

All out of school

School Level

  • Lower secondary
  • Upper secondary

Other populations reached

  • Other community members - female

Participants include

  • Adolescent mothers (pregnant or parenting)
  • Orphans and vulnerable children
  • People living with HIV/AIDS

Program Approaches Back to Top

Life skills education

  • Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)
  • Gender, rights and power
  • Negotiation skills
  • Sexual and reproductive health (including puberty education)
  • Social and emotional learning (SEL) skills building

Mentoring/psychosocial support

  • Peer mentors

School-related gender-based violence

  • Safe channels/mechanisms for reporting violence
  • Violence prevention curriculum/activities for students

Social/gender norms change

  • Group activities with students or school-age children/adolescents

Women's empowerment programs

  • Empowerment training
  • Self-help groups (non-financial)

Program Goals Back to Top

Education goals

  • Improved social and emotional learning/skills and mindsets
  • Increased grade attainment
  • Increased secondary school completion
  • Increased years of schooling
  • Reduced absenteeism

Cross-cutting goals

  • Improved critical consciousness
  • Improved financial literacy and savings
  • Improved mental health
  • Improved sexual and reproductive health
  • Improved understanding of sexual harassment, coercion, and consent
  • Increased agency and empowerment
  • Increased knowledge of HIV, puberty, and sexual and reproductive health
  • Increased knowledge of rights
  • More equal power in relationships
  • More equitable gender attitudes and norms
  • Reduced adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • Reduced intimate partner violence
  • Reduced school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV)
  • Reduced STI/HIV/AIDS
  • Reduced violence against children in the home

Additional Information Back to Top

Primary Contact

Christine Bailey
World Education, Inc.
Senior Technical Advisor
christine_bailey@worlded.org
+16174829485