Caregivers Involvement in Girls Skills and Work Readiness Training Improves Participation and USAID Funded Chengutai Wana - Siyakha Project

1) In Mozambique, when a girl drops out of school, her life changes radically. Her livelihood prospects diminish, and she becomes more vulnerable to poverty, exclusion, violence, and the associated health risks of HIV and STIs. If she has dropped out because of pregnancy, social stigma and the pressures of supporting a young child further compound her challenges. One important Objective of  Associacao Nacional Para O Desenvolvimento Auto - Sustententado (ANDA- Chengetai Wana project) is to improve the job skills and linkages for Adolescent girls and young women to income generating avenues. Our formative survey indicated that economic empowerment of adolescent girls and young women is a key component of comprehensive HIV prevention and youth development strategies as a way to promote agency and rebalance gendered power dynamics.

However, work-readiness programs i.e.  SIYAKHA have struggled to identify the ideal combination of skills and strategies to retain and mainstream young people with limited schooling and experience into local economies due to limited support when girls have been selected for various skills courses while attending different trades. To establish impactful and realistic participation with minimized drop out of girls in training Participation, Chengetai Wana Project through ANDA, engaged Caregivers and their Male partners to attend a session during the girls training period at their various training centers and this, generated a list of genuine, supportive behaviors that could be promoted to reduce the dropout rate in providing the intervention.

The project continuing collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) approach allows the Protect Staff to identify challenges , leaning opportunities and adapt to achieve its Project Objective.