Breakthrough’s 5-year Adolescent Empowerment Program in Uttar Pradesh with IKEA Foundation brings significant positive social impact

 

 

Breakthrough’s 5-year Adolescent Empowerment Program in Uttar Pradesh with IKEA Foundation brings significant positive social impact

 

Survey findings of this program shows that there has been improvement in early marriage & school drop-out, health & hygiene and changed in behaviour towards gender-based violence

 

 

●       Marriageable age for girls increased by almost 2 years between due to Breakthrough’s five-year long interventions in Uttar Pradesh

●       Adolescents school drop-out rates fell by 6% between 2015-16 – 2021 despite the COVID-19 pandemic

●       Breakthrough’s five-year long interventions offer practical, scalable and replicable solutions that can be cost-effectively deployed to change social norms and gender discriminatory behaviours

 

Lucknow, July 30, 2021: Breakthrough, a women’s rights organization, today released the findings from its five-year long Adolescent Empowerment Program (AEP) in Uttar Pradesh.

Breakthrough has been working with adolescents through the Adolescent Empowerment Programme (AEP) since 2012 across different states in India. The program was initiated in 7 seven districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh in 2015-16 with support from IKEA Foundation and engaged  with nearly 150,000 adolescents’ girls and boys aged 11-19 years, from 511 Gram Panchayats and 694 schools. The program sought to help adolescents access gender equity in health and education in their homes and community for themselves and others. The data from the study conducted at the end of the five-year program shows significant improvement in behaviours relating to gender, health, education and violence.

The  endline study was conducted across 6 districts in the state of Uttar Pradesh, namely, Lucknow, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, and Siddharth Nagar, consisting of 104 villages with over 12000 households. The key focus areas for the program assessment and evaluation included health, education, gender and violence. NR Management Consultants (NRMC), a technical and social development advisory firm and part of Aavishkaar Group’s Intellecap, monitored and evaluated the program.

Key highlights from the study

Gender Based Discrimination

The programme worked on three broad components such as division of household chores, inter gender communication and marriage to understand gender based discrimination. It was found in the final evaluation that there had been a fall in the adverse attitude towards gender discriminatory distribution of household chores since the interventions were initiated. In 2016, when the program was launched almost 36% disagreed  with the statement that ‘boys do not need to help in household chores but the final evaluation conducted in 2021 showed that 76% respondents believed that boys should spend more time helping with household chores.

The improvement in boys’ participation in household chores during the program stage was also evident from the reduction in average number of hours girls spent doing household chores. However, girls on an average spent about 30 minutes more on household chores than their male counterparts indicating that while the average number of hours spent on household chores has reduced, the burden is still skewed disproportionately towards girls across age groups.

Commenting on the survey findings, Sohini Bhattacharya, President and CEO, Breakthrough, “We are inspired by the final survey results of our 5 year program in Uttar Pradesh. The program outcomes indicate that if we want to build a gender-equal future, we must put the adolescents in the centre. In the last five years, we've made some big shifts in attitudes where young girls have started negotiating for their right to education and health. Along with Uttar Pradesh, the program is going on in Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab and Delhi. and we are confident to take our learnings from Uttar Pradesh to other places in close coordination with the state governments.”  

 

Early Marriage: Marriageable age for girls increased by almost 2 years from 2017 to 2021

The evaluation of Breakthrough’s interventions showed a significant decrease in early/underage marriages. While 6% adolescents in the age group of 11-22 years were found to be married at the time of the program evaluation in 2017, this figure was found to be only 1.19 % at the time of the final evaluation, indicating an almost 5% (4.8%) decline in early/underage marriages. It also showed significant improvements around negotiation skills of girls on leisure, mobility and choices and on sharing of household chores by boys.

 

Education: Adolescent school drop-out rates fell by 6% 2015-16 – 2021 despite the impact of Covid-19

There was positive movement in the outcome with respect to enrolment rates from 81% to 92% when the final evaluation of the program was conducted in 2021. However, COVID-19 pandemic reversed much of the progress that the program achieved in the last 2-3 years. A year-long disengagement from school resulted in boys joining temporary work and the ineffectiveness of online classes posed a risk of a likely increase in number of drop-outs in the upcoming sessions. Despite the barriers, the programme made positive gains. Parents displayed an increasing desire to fulfil the career and education aspirations of both girls and boys.

Health

Breakthrough’s interventions encouraged adolescent girls to visit health facilities whenever they needed the services. Adolescents of all age groups said that health services had improved in their areas. Moreover, there has been an improvement in demand for services such as IFA tablets and sanitary napkins. In fact, even post pandemic, front line workers from intervention-endline areas remarked that the demand for the services is fast reaching its previous levels despite a brief breakdown in services due to COVID19.

Gender Based Violence: Significant impact shift was noticed in attitudes towards violence and its reporting

The study looked at the attitudes of the target audience with respect to violence, to what extent adolescents reported having witnessed and experienced different forms of violence such as verbal, physical and sexual. It was found that the reporting of violence witnessed was much higher than that of violence experienced. Similarly, violence within family (witnessed or experienced) was reported in lower proportions when compared with reporting of violence outside family (witnessed or experienced). At the level of adolescents, however, despite the issue of violence being discussed only in the last year of the programme, girls and boys displayed sensitivity towards it.

Interventions such as this will be critical in challenging the existing gender norms in society and building a gender-equal world. The five-year long program offers a scalable, replicable and cost-effective model that can be deployed to spread gender sensitivity both at home and in communities.

About Breakthrough:

Breakthrough works towards making violence and discrimination against women and girls unacceptable. We change gender norms by working with adolescents and youth, their families, and their communities, as well as by using media campaigns, the arts and popular culture to build a more equal world around us and create a more enabling environment.

Find Full report on https://inbreakthrough.org/endline-evaluation-of-adolescent-empowerment-project-in-uttar-pradesh/