Creating Healthy Approaches to Success (CHATS) Girls' Club Program

Creating Healthy Approaches to success (CHATS) is a three-year after-school program after aimed at helping scholars achieve academic success and gain life skills. CHATS Clubs help to provide girls with the tools they need to self-advocate for their own life choices, be empowered with information about their sexual and reproductive health, and learn critical skills that will help them generate income and be prosperous.Throughout the first two years, Girl’s CHATS Club participants cover fundamental life and leadership skills such as sexual and reproductive health, group facilitation, gender and rights, as well as self advocacy. These soft skills are important for girls’ emotional development and are shown to keep them engaged and enrolled in secondary school.The third year of the CHATS focuses on a comprehensive entrepreneurship program where girls learn fundamental skills for starting and maintaining small businesses. Girls then have the unique opportunity to put their learning into practice by starting their own entrepreneurial ventures and engaging with the community. Through the entrepreneurship and community engagement components of CHATS our scholars are creating a market for themselves within and beyond their communities. AGE Africa transitioned its CHATS programming to a radio format (Ticheze Atsikana Radio) during the COVID-19 lockdown. Girls are most vulnerable when they’re out of school, and education access is a fundamental pillar of all AGE Africa programming. During the global emergency, AGE Africa had to quickly pivot that programming to adapt to the needs of our scholars. The Creating Healthy Approaches to Success (CHATS) life skills curriculum and program shifted from an afterschool club for girls to a local radio program reaching girls across Malawi’s southern region, including the Mangochi District.