Empowering Adolescent Girls
- F Funding Initiative/Portfolio
? Activity Status: Unknown
Key Information
The government of Rwanda set out a bold and ambitious agenda to achieve middle-income status by the year 2020. However, at most levels of society, women remain distinctly vulnerable due to a variety of factors, including low literacy rates, low secondary school completion rate, high rates of domestic violence, and lower earnings and economic opportunities than men. The sharp differentiation in treatment, expectations, opportunities, and access to resources for adolescent girls during childhood and adolescence shapes their life trajectories in numerous ways. Just as adolescent boys are given more freedom and opportunity, the lives of adolescent girls become more constrained and confined in terms of opportunity, resources, mobility, and life choices. As a result, adolescent girls are stuck in a cycle that reinforces a life of poverty, stress, and limitation. This is particularly so in the northern and western districts of Rwanda, where Firelight’s CBO grantee-partners were located. Communities in this region have been impacted not only by the genocide, HIV, and acute poverty, but also by instability at the borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. Our aim with this grantee cluster has been to build the capacity these local community-based organizations to run and document effective, replicable, and potentially scalable holistic girls’ empowerment programs that will support vulnerable young women and shift their economic, educational, and social outcomes in the long-term. Of the six grantee-partners we also supported Action pour le Développement du Peuple (ADEPE) to be a Community Grantmaker to the other five, building their capacity to support the other smaller. We have been working with ADEPE to focus on strengthening the capacity of the smaller CBOs in girl-centered programming and in organizational development areas such as financial management and monitoring and evaluation.
Lead Implementing Organization(s)
Location(s)
Sub-Saharan Africa
Rwanda
Activity URL
https://www.firelightfoundation.org/girls-empowerment?rq=empowering%20adolescent%20girls
Government Affiliation
Non-governmental programYears
Not applicable or unknown
Partner(s)
Not applicable or unknown
Ministry Affiliation
UnknownFunder(s)
Not applicable or unknown
COVID-19 Response
UnknownGeographic Scope
NationalMeets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES
UnknownAreas of Work Back to Top
Education areas
Attainment
- Secondary completion
Other
- Other
Other skills
- Vocational training
Cross-cutting areas
- Adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
- Economic/livelihoods (including savings/financial inclusion, etc.)
- Empowerment
- Food/water security
- Gender equality
- Other aspects of sexual and reproductive health
Program participants
Other populations reached
Not applicable or unknown
Participants include
Not applicable or unknown
Program Approaches Back to Top
Health and childcare services
- Adolescent-friendly health services
Learning while working
- Vocational training
Reducing economic barriers
- Vouchers/grants
Women's empowerment programs
- Empowerment training
Program Goals Back to Top
Education goals
- Increased secondary school completion
Cross-cutting goals
- Increased agency and empowerment