We are currently facing the greatest educational crisis in recent history. Women and girls have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and many girls are still at risk of never returning to school. As the pandemic spreads, families who were financially struggling even before the pandemic are increasingly faced with tough decisions. We know from experience that these tough decisions often result in girls dropping out of school. Continuity of learning is a stabilising force in times of crisis. Your grant would allow us to continue our efforts to ensure vulnerable young women can retain the vital link to their education by: Distance Mentoring – Our participants typically live in low-income and remote areas, making them especially likely to be forced to give up their education permanently as a result of this crisis. Additionally, it is expected that the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 will be felt for longer periods in low-income countries. To maintain the vital link to school, our community mentors are continuing to provide weekly individual learning support sessions to girls by phone. This helps to emotionally support girls through the crisis and provide encouragement to continue their academic study at home. Identifying and Supporting Girls Most at Risk – Our country teams are regularly monitoring girls to identify and support girls who are most at risk. This is determined using our risk and response tool, a powerful early warning system that
The project’s implementation goal is to maximise gender equity in education as well as reducing adolescent drop-out rates, maintaining the critical link to education for vulnerable young women in communities impacted by COVID-19.
Your support will also help us to support teachers and schools by providing vital resources to help students continue their studies and catch up on lost learning once schools reopen with accelerated learning programs and school calendar adjustments. We anticipate that the channels we have built for distance learning will remain critical in ensuring stability and consistency for students, even as schools open their doors. Therefore, we are implementing a blended project approach that combines program pivot activities adopted when schools began closing in 2020 with our traditionally programmatic approach to ensure our support is truly responsive to the evolving needs of our students and will measure our impacts through the following outcomes: •Maintenance of pre-pandemic enrollment levels and grade advancements
•Establishment of enhanced assistance activities and resources for teachers and school communities as schools reopen
•Continued and adaptive distance learning support in the event that schools are re-close due to an uptick in COVID-19 cases
•Cost-efficiencies learned through adapted ways of working that can be valuable to overall program development
•Deeper engagement by families and communities in girls’ education
Our global research, monitoring and evaluation team developed a set of indicators to track and measure our response to COVID-19's impacts on education systems. These indicators are capturing the breadth of our education support programs, allowing us to provide proactive assistance to our students, intervene when necessary, and encourage continued commitment to education. The data and information collected will ensure the project is high quality and cost effective through the following indicators: •# of virtual individual mentoring sessions delivered
•# of girls (unique) receiving individual mentoring sessions
•# of girls contacted through virtual group mentoring (WhatsApp, etc.) groups, online forums or other
•# of girls responding to new non-return risk questions
•# of girls activating ANY non-return risk indicator •TO COLLECT AFTER SCHOOLS REOPEN
o% of girls who have returned from school closure 2 weeks after opening
o% of girls who have returned from school closure 6 weeks after opening
When we invest in women and girls, we are investing in the people who invest in everyone else.
Australians Investing in Women acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Also known as Australian Women Donors Network (ABN: 28 141 197 471), Australians Investing in Women is a registered charity endorsed by the Australian Tax Office as a deductible gift recipient (DGR1) under a special listing, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.
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