Broadening Girls' Horizons: Effects of Life Skills Education Programme in Rural Uttar Pradesh

This report is the result of a collaborative project undertaken by Prerana and the Population Council to implement a life skills education programme for unmarried adolescent girls in rural Uttar Pradesh and to evaluate its effectiveness. The intervention programme aimed to empower unmarried adolescent girls aged 13-17 years and address their vulnerabilities by building their agency; fostering egalitarian gender role attitudes; building awareness about sexual and reproductive health matters; developing vocational skills and future work aspirations; and influencing perceptions about marriage and their ability to negotiate marriage-related decisions, delaying marriage and first pregnancy

Broadening girls\u27 horizons: Effects of life skills education programme in rural Uttar Pradesh

This report is the result of a collaborative project undertaken by Prerana, a Delhi-based NGO, and the Population Council to implement a life-skills education program for unmarried adolescent girls in rural Uttar Pradesh and to evaluate its effectiveness. The intervention program aimed to empower unmarried adolescent girls aged 13–17 years and address their vulnerabilities by: building their agency, fostering egalitarian gender role attitudes, building awareness about sexual and reproductive health matters, developing vocational skills and future work aspirations, and influencing perceptions about marriage and the ability to negotiate marriage-related decisions (delaying marriage and first pregnancy)

Voices from the street: Comics for young men on masculinity, sexuality and HIV—An evidence-based communication initiative

HIV infection is spreading rapidly among young people in India. With more than 30 percent of new infections in 2006 in the 15–29-year age group, the need to address the vulnerability of this population subgroup is pressing. Existing literature shows that young men subscribe to norms of masculinity that lead to risky behavior patterns. Misinformation about HIV coupled with a low perception of risk to themselves make young men even more vulnerable. To bring about social and attitude change in the long-term, communication strategies that are evidence-based, culturally appropriate, and designed in consultation with target audiences are needed. The Population Council undertook a participatory communications project to create comic books on HIV prevention for young men in India’s urban slums. Four comics were designed presenting a real man as one who is caring, supportive, and responsible. As noted in this brief, the comics were published in four languages (Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, and English), and as of March 2007, about 250,000 comics have been distributed in four cities

Promoting parent-child interaction and communication for healthy development of adolescents: Lessons from a pilot project in rural Bihar

There is a recognition in India’s policies and programs of the need to actively engage parents in enabling their adolescent children to make safe and healthy transitions to adulthood. The Population Council, in partnership with CEDPA India, initiated an intervention project for parents of adolescents aimed at developing and testing a program to foster closer relationships between parents and their adolescent children. The project was formulated on the hypothesis that a program intended to build parenting skills would enable parents to develop closer relationships with their adolescent children and communicate more effectively with them on various concerns, particularly those related to growing up and sexual and reproductive health matters, and thereby enable healthier development of adolescents in the long run. The intervention was implemented by CEDPA India in a rural setting in the state of Bihar. The Population Council evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the intervention on parent-child relations and communication. This report documents the intervention, examines the feasibility of implementing the model, and evaluates its effectiveness and acceptability