Project Summary: START4GIRLS will work with girls and adolescent women (aged 12 – 22 years), their communities, and religious and traditional leaders to promote return to school or entrance into vocational skills training for girls who have dropped out, especially married girls and teenage mothers. The project will take place in Mutare and Buhera Districts in Manicaland Province, characterized by arid and semi-arid conditions and recurrent droughts and economic and political instability. The project is estimated to directly benefit 59,040 people (31,291 women and 27,749 men). Build Agency Building consciousness, confidence, self-esteem, and aspirations (non-formal sphere) and knowledge, skills and capabilities (formal sphere). Transform Structures Discriminatory social norms, customs, values and exclusionary practices (non-formal sphere) and laws, policies, procedures and services (formal sphere). Change Relations The power relations through which people live their lives through intimate relations and social networks (non-formal sphere) and group membership and activism, and citizen and market negotiations (formal sphere).

Partners: Coady Institute, Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe (LCDZ), Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, Education Coalition of Zimbabwe (ECOZI) and Union for the Development of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe (UDACIZA)