Girls’ Education
Program Report 2021
At Room to Read, we support girls in their development of key life skills to self-advocate and navigate challenging
situations so that we can work toward a gender-equal world. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented difficult
times for everyone, and has especially exposed vulnerabilities and posed obstacles specific to girls. As noted byBrookings, the transition from in-person to remote schooling increased pressure on girls to drop out of school
due to factors ranging from household demands to economic concerns and child marriages. We have made it apriority to show young girls that they are valued, and they have the right to a quality education. To do so, we used
our innovative approaches to reach more girls than ever before. Our methods have included remote individualand group mentoring, development and broadcast of TV and radio programs, direct messaging to parents andteachers, distribution of hard copy materials to students, virtual training for teachers and school leadership, social
media to inform and advocate, sharing our content on government and partner platforms and monitoring girls atrisk of not returning to school. These remote program activities were implemented with the hope of providing thevariety of support girls might need during these unprecedented times. We are thrilled to report that our efforts
have proven more successful than we ever anticipated.
Throughout 2021, we have continued to deliver our adapted programming to reach girls wherever they are and track
our program delivery using a set of crisis-adapted indicators. These measurements, adapted from our longstanding
global indicators, provide a clear glimpse into how effectively our programs are running in the various learning
landscapes in which we are operating amid the pandemic.

COVID-19 Program Innovations
PRIOR TO 2020

2020

(School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic)

2021 AND BEYOND

Girls’ Education Components
for In-Person Learning

Additional Ways of Working
to Benefit Girls Remotely

Mixed Modality Approach• Life skills education• Mentorship• Material and academic support• Family and community
engagement• Remote mentoring• Increased monitoring for at-risk girls• Direct messaging• Television and radio broadcasts• Hard copy materials• A hybrid approach incorporating
locally-relevant in-person andremote elements to support
dignified and inclusive learning
for as many girls as possible

Our Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (RM&E) team continues to conduct studies and collect data that
can help us further improve and build upon our methodologies while also providing us with evidence-based
comparative information.

Benefiting More Girls Than Ever Before
Our cumulative number of children benefited through our Girls’ Education Program increased notably in 2020.
Through the end of 2019, we had benefited 114,900 girls through the program cumulatively, reaching more than
33,000 girls in 2019 alone. In 2020, however, we reached more than 2.7 million girls. This large increase is due toour new methods of supporting girls during the pandemic, including radio and TV programming, through which
we were able to reach a much larger audience quickly.

Our RM&E team developed new count methodologies that have been vetted by experts to help us estimate thereach of these activities. Notably, with our TV and radio broadcasting, we needed to consider a range of variables
to estimate not just how many girls had access to our programming, but how many of those girls were regularly
viewing or listening to our broadcasts beyond those already reached through our ordinary in-person programming. We utilized available census data, demographic statistics and other publicly available national data, andthen subtracted the number of current program participants to avoid counting children twice. Due to the worldwide shift to more virtual activities during COVID-19, a number of new studies were available for review — bothinternal and external — that helped to benchmark our participation rate estimates. Based on the available data,
we conservatively estimated participation rates between 10-20 percent for non-Girls’ Education Program participants in broadcast geographies.

High Return Rates Among Program Participants
At the end of 2020, we assessed the percentage of participants who had returned to school in Cambodia, Laos,Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Vietnam, where schools had reopened and saw impressive results. More specifically, wecalculated the return rate by assessing the number of girls who were enrolled in school or had graduated fromschool as of December 31st as compared to our total enrollment as of February 28th, 2020.

Girls’ Education Program Participant Return to School Rates, as of the End of 2020
TANZANIA

98.9%

LAOS

96.5%

SRI LANKA

95.7%

VIETNAM

93.7%

CAMBODIA

91.5%

Mixed Modality Activities as of Mid-2021
Indicator

Jan-June 2021

Cumulative Total

Number of unique Room to Read programs/episodes
broadcast via TV

161

187

Number of unique Room to Read programs/episodes
broadcast via radio

85

218

Number of direct messages to email IDs or mobile phones
via email/SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram/WeChat/other meansthat furthers programmatic objectives of the Girls’ Education
Program

1,281,475

3,371,540

Number of unique posts/files on social media platforms(Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) that furtherGirls’ Education Programs objectives

905

1,435

Number of unique materials uploaded onto government orother partner websites

2058

Number of unique girls receiving non-digital materials (hardcopy books, worksheets, etc.)
Number of individual remote mentoring sessions delivered

8,685

19,289141,475

406,963

Number of unique girls receiving individual mentoring sessions

24,14836,811

Social Mobilizers Continue to Provide Extensive
Remote Mentoring for GirlsThe ongoing COVID-19 pandemic requires our programs to continue to benimble and adaptable for remote learning as well as some in-person settings.
What was initially challenging has developed into an opportunity for Room
to Read to find new ways to reach girls beyond our traditional programming.
These adaptations have largely helped facilitate distance learning andengagement, and our social mobilizers are providing in-depth support to girls,
carrying out individual and group mentoring sessions, traveling to girls’ homes,
making phone calls and sending messages — all in an effort to ensure that girls
don’t lose the critical life skills lessons during this challenging time. With themyriad unanticipated obstacles unique to young girls that have emerged fromthe global health crisis, our in-country staff have demonstrated resilience andcreativity in developing programs to help girls receive critical socioemotional
support and overcome whatever challenges they might be facing. From April
2020 to June 2021, our social mobilizers delivered a total of 406,963 individual
remote mentoring sessions, reaching a total of 36,811 girls across India,Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Tanzania and Vietnam*.

*Please note that schools were briefly closed in Vietnam, Laos and Tanzania between April 2020 and June 2021, influencing their
total numbers represented in the figures above.

Story from Nepal

Kabita, Alumna andSocial Mobilizer

In Grade 4, Kabita joined Room to Read’s Girls’
Education Program in Kathmandu, Nepal. Following
her completion of Grade 10, Kabita started to receive
marriage proposals and was pressured by her family
to consider marrying to help with their financial
difficulties. Despite the pressures, Kabita rejected theprospect of child marriage; she was encouraged by hersocial mobilizer to say “no” and felt empowered by theknowledge she had cultivated in her life skills lessons.
Kabita’s resilience kept her in school and out of a childmarriage.
Now, her mother looks to Kabita as an inspirationand example of what can happen when a girl stays
in school. Once in favor of early marriages, hermother now says, “Nowadays, I advise my friends andcolleagues at work to not marry their daughters off at a
young age and let them study.”
Kabita remains connected to Room to Read, as she is
now a social mobilizer in her community of Nuwakot.
She works mostly with girls in Grade 7 and sees thelack of support that the girls receive from their families
with regards to pursuing an education. In her life skills
sessions, she teaches the girls critical skills like how
to problem solve, manage emotions and resist peerpressure. She also provides individual mentoring to thegirls and shares her own story as an example of what
can be achieved when a girl stays in school.
Having once been in their shoes, Kabita is able toreally relate to the girls and understands the various
challenges and fears that they share with her, giving
her lived experience as support and guidance. Kabita’s
support for these girls has endured throughout theCOVID-19 pandemic, as she regularly calls themto check in, answer questions, encourage them tocontinue their schooling and review the life skills thatthey have practiced.
Kabita is a testament to the enduring effects of ourGirls’ Education Program. While she was once a young
girl unsure of how she could fulfill her own dreams
and complete her education, she is now a confident,
compassionate and adaptive woman who is actively
working to ensure that the next generation of young
girls have the same opportunities that she did.
You can view a video about Kabita’s story here.

Story from India

Roshni, Program
Participant

In India, child marriage is a particularly prevalent issue
for young girls, and a notable barrier to completing
their educations. One student in Room to Read’s Girls’
Education program, Roshni, saw the realities of thispractice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While in lockdown in Chhattisgarh, Roshni’s mothertold her that another girl from their town wasscheduled to be married. Unsettled by this news,
Roshni looked for more information about thismarriage arrangement. In doing so, she learned thatthe prospective bride was a minor and wanted to dosomething. Roshni reached out to the young girl’ssister, asking for her thoughts and reiterating to herthat child marriage is illegal. Unfortunately, the sister
confided that she felt helpless as she was not able to do
anything to stop the marriage.
Roshni decided to take action. She says, “My life skills
education has equipped me to help my classmatesduring difficult times. I would like to become a changemaker in my village.” Roshni asked her father toaccompany her to meet the Sarpanch, their village’s
elected representative. She tried to convince theSarpanch to intervene and stop the child marriage.
But the Sarpanch said, “Child marriage is common
in migrant communities living in the village. Thejoblessness and poverty inflicted by the pandemic areforcing many parents to give away their minor daughtersin marriage. The families are exploiting lockdown
restrictions to conduct low-cost ceremonies secretly.”
Roshni then called her social mobilizer, who encouraged
Roshni to call Childline, a toll-free child helpline number,and the police with a request to keep her identity
confidential. The police acted swiftly and informed theChild Welfare Committee. The police, Childline and CWC
members went to the house of the girl who was to bemarried and told the parents to stop the marriage orface legal consequences. Fearing legal repercussions,the girl’s parents decided to call off the marriage of theirminor daughter. The police appreciated Roshni’s efforts
and kept her identity secret.
Roshni took the knowledge and life skills that she
developed through Room to Read’s Girls’ Education
Program to be an advocate against child marriage andbecome a leader in her community, promoting girls’ rights
and the importance of their schooling. She was thrilled
she was able to apply her own education and successfully
stop a child marriage.
You can view a video about Roshni’s story here.

As part of an upcoming project, Room to Read staff
interviewed a collection of girls from our Girls' Education
Program, including Roshni. These interviews provide
insight into the experiences of our program participants
and will be shared as a part of a collaborative project
between Room to Read and Rebel Girls.