Strengthening Opportunities for Adolescent Resilience (SOAR)

Strengthening Opportunities for Adolescent Resilience (SOAR) seeks to empower adolescent girls who have never attended school, or who dropped out in early grades, to make positive life choices.

SOAR provides access to an integrated accelerated education model through which graduates acquire basic skills in literacy, numeracy, and financial literacy. Adolescent girls (and boys) are also equipped with the knowledge, self-confidence, vision, and relationships needed to engage in entrepreneurship and to participate in decision-making at home and in their communities. Globally, about 258 million children and adolescents are out of school. Millions of other children in low-income countries are not acquiring the basic literacy and numeracy skills needed for future livelihoods: It is estimated that only 15% of the children who complete lower secondary school in Sub-Saharan Africa have achieved basic proficiency in reading, while 10% have acquired basic skills in mathematics.