Pathways to Wellbeing, Empowerment and Resilience for Adolescents and Youths (POWER4AY)

Background

The POWER 4 AY project envisions to improve the wellbeing of adolescents and youth (AYs) most impacted by inequality and discrimination in Mangalsen & Panchadewal Binayak Municipality Achham districts of Nepal. It will be achieved through increasing awareness and access of AYs to sexual reproductive health and thus contributing to reducing teenage pregnancy, increasing functional literacy and helping AYs for further educational attainment, increasing employment and income generation opportunities for AYs, and making governments accountable for age, gender and disability sensitive services, policies and plans that are supportive for AYs. The target group for the interventions will be AYs aged between 13-24 years. The AYs aged 13-15 years from the most poor and vulnerable families who are struggling to continue their formal education due to financial crisis will be targeted for their continuation/ reunion in formal education through bursary support. Catch-up/ remedial classes will also be organised for those most -deprived AYs who are in the verse of drop out due to poor performance in some areas or were dropped out since last few years and are now interested to continue their formal education. They will also be connected to bursary support. Also, those who have dropped out and are interested to be engaged in economic opportunities will be provided with market demanded vocational and micro-entrepreneurial skills. Integrated life skills (which combines Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health-ASRH and WASH) education will be provided for both categories of AYs. The life skill curriculum is intended to develop a set of foundational skills, competencies, behaviours, attitude and personal qualities which enable AYs to effectively navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well and achieve their goals.

Project Contribute to SDG:

POWER4AY project contribute to

Goal

Contribute to improving wellbeing of adolescents and youth (AYs) most impacted by inequality and discrimination in Banke, Surkhet, Dailekh and Achham Nepal.

Expected Outcome

1. Improve AY choices towards avoiding teenage pregnancy and parenting / early marriages
2. Increase gender transformative and inclusive functional literacy for AYs and support educational pathways for AYs
3. Increase AYs decent employment
4. Age, gender, and disability responsive services, policies and plans in support of AY’s personal development and economic empowerment are developed with and for AYs

Key Expected Activities

• 1.1.1.  Assessment of ASRH and MHM needs of the AYs
• 1.1.2.  Upgrade existing LS4S curriculum to integrate ASRH/MHM, WASH and gender equality
• 1.1.3. ToT to facilitators on Integrated LS4S curriculum
• 1.1.4 Conduct Integrated LS4S sessions for AYs in youth clubs/community/schools
• 1.1.5. Formation of youth clubs, capacity building of members on peer to peer mentoring for personal development of AYs, ASRH and WASH and mobilise them in the community
• 1.1.6 Conduct Awareness sessions in the community on the importance of delayed marriage, SRH and Life skills for overall wellbeing of AYs
• Support health facilities in establishing/upgrading ASRH services or AFS corner
• Train HFWs on ASRH to provide services to adolescents and youths in friendly manner
• Repair and upgrade of WASH services in the targeted health care facilities
• Develop training manual on functional literacy and numeracy (business literacy and numeracy) for AYs who are interested to join economic activities/business (sensitivity towards people with disabilities and marginalised groups)
• Train Resource person (ToT) to conduct sessions for AYs (responsive towards people with disability and marginalised groups)
• Conduct sessions for selected AYs (responsive towards people with disabilities)
• Identify drop-out/most likely to drop out AYs and conduct catch-up class in coordination with municipality and schools
• Training/orientation to teachers on facilitation of catch-up class for school dropouts and the most likely to drop out
• Bursary support to drop-out and likely to drop-out AYs including AYs with disabilities
• Conduct parental awareness session on the importance of education
• Carry out labour market assessment to identify market demanded trades and enterprises along with accessibility audits of Youths with Disabilities
• Map out the status of Persons with Disabilities, especially Youths with Disabilities in the municipality in collaboration with DPO
• Provide vocational skill training to the selected AYs
• Provide vocational skill training graduates with materials and tools to start profession/business (kind/cash)
• ToT to resource persons on Micro-enterprise development
• Provide enterprise development training to the selected AYs
• Provide business start-up support to the graduates of enterprise development training
• Assistive device support to disabled youths (MEVT training graduates) per their needs
• Hold regular meetings with private sectors, financial institutions including cooperatives for business registration, promotion, marketing and employment
• Market promotion through digital and social media
• Provide technical and financial support to establish and operate AYs networks including youth clubs for learning sharing events
• Carry out stakeholder analysis
• Organize series of interaction meetings with local governments, private sector service providers and community to talk about AYs rights and their specific needs (gender, disability, age specific needs and services)
• Support youth clubs and their networks to have dialogues with local, district and provincial governments on the needs of programs and policies to support AYs economic wellbeing (youth with disabilities, girls and women) and climate resilience
• Support DPOs and local governments to formulate AY friendly (with specific focus on disability, gender) economic empowerment, climate resilient policies and plans
• Support the families who are impacted by inequality and discrimination (priority will be for family with disabled persons) for construction and renovation of cost-efficient WASH structures
• Support for renovation/construction of WASH structures in collaboration with local governments (community level/vocational schools/school)

Coverage Area

Mangalsen Municipality ward# 4, 5, 6 & 7 Panchadewal Binayak Municipality ward# 1, 2, 3 & 4

Sector

• Livelihood & Education (89%)
• ASRH (4%)
• WASH (7%)

Project Period

July 2021 to june 2026

Funding Partner:

Save the Children (SC Italy/Bulgari)

Expected Budget:

NPR: 8,37,97,798.50

Beneficiary criteria: 

School dropped out and the most likely to dropout Adolescents and youths from the most deprived and marginalized families. The project will focus on the retention and return of the AYs aged 13-15 in formal education through series of interventions including teachers’ capacity building, bursary supports and remedial/catch-up classes. Life skill sessions will also be an integral part of the program for this age group in order to help them for their personal development. AYs aged 16-24 will be targeted with vocational and business skills promotional initiatives complemented with integrated life skill sessions. The AYs of the same age group who are poor in functional and numeral literacy for successful transition to adulthoods will be provided functional literacy and numeracy sessions before they start any business and skill trainings. Through integrated life skill sessions, SRH messages focusing on the reduction of teenage pregnancy will also be implemented targeting to the AYs in schools and community.