Project Background:
In India, adolescent girls often face exclusion from education and the pressures of early marriage. Bihar, one of India’s most populous states, has a significant adolescent population, with an estimated 36% of the population under the age of 15.
Adolescent girls in Bihar face numerous challenges:
- 41% of young women were married before the age of 18
- 11% of girls aged 15-19 have begun childbearing
- Only 9% of women have completed 12 years of formal education
The Hunger Project’s Adolescent Girls program focuses on empowering young girls by helping them identify obstacles to their growth and equipping them with the skills to overcome these challenges. Key to the program is delaying the early marriage of girls to keep them in school. The program builds the girls’ confidence in advocating for their own needs and desires in their families and the broader community.
Key Project Activities:
The program included:
Sukanya Club meetings
Sukanya Club meetings are held fortnightly and are the core of the Adolescent Girls Program. The meetings are each held with small groups of girls and provide the girls with education about certain topics that they may find difficult to discuss with their families. The meetings are a safe space for the girls to talk freely about their lives and concerns whilst also learning skills to support their futures. Topics in the meetings included environmental protection, time planning and management, discrimination, and nutrition and healthy habits.
Needs based workshops
Needs based workshops are designed based on the identified needs of the girls during each year.
Block level conventions
Block level conventions provide the platform for the adolescent girls to raise their voice against issues that they witness in their communities in the presence of government officials and other community representatives. It gives the girls an opportunity to advocate for their needs in an environment where their voices are listened to and respected.
State level workshop
A three-day trip was organised for 32 adolescent girls in Bihar’s capital city, Patna. The girls that were chosen for this trip were aged 14-18 and all belonged to a marginalised caste group or minority group. The participants had never visited Patna before, with many not even leaving their village before. The girls were able to explore the city, hear from women with careers that break gender stereotypes, learn self-defense skills and hear from a counsellor on the importance of positive thinking.
Key Project Outcomes
Adolescent Girls Key Achievements 2024:
- 1,400 girls engaged across 40 villages in four districts
- 94% remain in school (up from 50% in 2021)
- 94% remain unmarried with girls actively supporting peers to resist early marriage
- 97% pass rate for 10th Grade exams, 88% for 12th Grade
- 50 girls began college, many the first in their families
- Girls led 73 advocacy petitions for school improvements and 36 community petitions for infrastructure changes
2021-2024 Endline Evaluation Highlights:
- Over 95% of girls are now aware of their fundamental rights as young women and citizens
- 83% had a say in decisions regarding their marriages, including delaying or stopping marriage
- 79% participated in collective action to claim their rights and entitlements
- 83% have raised their voices or spoken out against gender discrimination
Community Involvement
The Block Level conventions allow the girls to advocate for their needs in the presence of Government Officials and community partners including police officers and healthcare workers. During these conventions, the girls raised their voice against issues affecting the broader community, and were praised by their communities for inciting change. Issues raised in the conventions included:
- The demand for bribes from government officers and schools
- The need for better school facilities (bins in bathrooms, books for libraries etc.)
- The need for police patrols while girls are travelling to schools
- Better local level health services
What’s Next:
As the girls are now older, between 15-17 years, the programs have been adjusted to address their changing interests and needs. For example, the girls have been continually questioning traditional practices based on gender. They want to talk about dowry, domestic violence and sexual violence. Programs have been aligned to address their questions. Furthermore, their older age means that the girls have begun thinking about what opportunities they would like to explore after leaving school. The exposure of the girls to women who break the gender roles has helped inspire the girls to different future possibilities. These types of sessions have been increased to motivate the girls to envision different opportunities.
Project Background
- Nearly half (46%) of girls in Bihar marry before the legal age of 18.
- Less than 20% of 16-17-year-old girls attend school.
- Bihar is considered one of the main Indian states supplying child labour to other states, with high rates of trafficking of young girls.
- The Hunger Project works directly with adolescent girls over a three-year period (2024- 2026), empowering them at a critical time in their development. We help ensure an enabling environment where they can exercise their voice and agency in making informed decisions about their lives.
- Your partnership means that, with 1,400 girls participating in the program, we can impact over 56,000 people in two generations! Bihar’s average household size is 5.4 members, so within just two generations, transforming the life of one adolescent girl can mean reaching more than 40 people.
Key Activities
Sukanya (Girls) Clubs
- Bi-monthly meetings of a local ‘club’ where girls come together to share their experiences, develop new ideas, and learn life skills.
- Block Level Club Meetings bring together adolescent girls and elected women, as well as local administration, policy makers, and media, to create a platform for girls to advocate for their rights, raise concerns, and petition government.
Girls Leadership Workshops
- Girls Leadership Workshops (GLWs) build the leadership capacity of girls, shifting their mindsets to see themselves as changemakers for themselves and communities. Follow-up workshops connected girls to their local councils, allowing them to identify issues and advocate for change.
Mobilising Elected Women Representatives
- Through participation across the program, elected women are trained on the rights of adolescent girls, the importance of education, and the causes and impacts of child marriage and gender-based violence and are mobilised to advocate for systemic change.
What costs are covered?
- Program Staff Cost: Renumeration for the ground staff implementing the project.
- Program Support Cost: Administrative costs such as stationaries, communication, rent, etc.
- Core Program Cost: General expenses needed to organise and conduct workshops and trainings.
- THP Australia Cost: Grant management costs for THP Australia, who acts as the grant manager for this project.
- THP Global Costs: Cost for the overall governance of the project as well as support services such as Monitoring & Evaluation and Financial platforms.
Partner and community involvement
The Hunger Project’s ‘Adolescent Girls Program’ is run by The Hunger Project India team. The Hunger Project uses timely and accurate data for interventions and works to make that data accessible and transparent to community members. This makes the data actionable and usable for communities and state authorities.
How does this project fit into a larger strategy?
The Hunger Project’s innovative and holistic approach to ending world hunger calls for the empowerment of rural communities in Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Latin America to take charge of their own development, transform entrenched harmful traditional practices and beliefs, and be active citizens who know their rights and hold the government to account. All of our programs – while adapted to meet local opportunities and challenges – share three essential things that will end hunger for good:
1) Start by empowering women as key change agents. The vast majority of people living in hunger and poverty are women. Women bear almost all responsibility for meeting the basic needs of the family, yet are systematically denied the resources, information, and freedom of action they need to fulfil this responsibility. Studies show that when women are supported and empowered, all of society benefits. Their families are healthier, more children go to school, agricultural productivity improves, and incomes increase. That’s why we focus on building the capacity of women.
2) Mobilise entire communities into self-reliant action. Our aim is to overcome the deep resignation within people living in hunger, and awaken them to the possibility of a different future, one free from hunger. We build people’s knowledge, skills, and leadership, so they can take action to improve their own communities.
3) Foster effective partnerships to engage local government. We work in partnership with local government bodies to ensure that they are effective, include women in leadership positions, are directly accountable to local people, and provide access to resources and information. We also educate and encourage communities to demand what they’re entitled to from their governments, including services, resources, and financial schemes and benefits.