Girls Education Challenge Through improved access to quality education along the education continuum, Sisters for Sisters’ Education (SfS Education) envisions that marginalised adolescent girls from four districts in rural Nepal – Surkhet, Parsa, Dhading and Lamjung – will transition from basic to secondary education, and secondary to upper secondary, empowered to leave school to either secure a sustainable livelihood or continue with education. They will be equipped with skills, bolstered by strong learning outcomes that improve employability, enhance confidence and self-esteem to act as leaders, and enable them to influence and control their own sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR). To achieve this, SfS Education aims to create secure, conducive learning environments for marginalized adolescent girls, with schools, teachers, parents and communities more actively engaged in helping girls to excel and committed to supporting girls’ education through addressing the socio-economic barriers that prevent adolescent girls from achieving learning outcomes and transitioning through key education milestones and beyond. The project design maximises gains from VSO’s SfS GEC-1 project by working with the same cohort of girls who are currently in basic or lower secondary education or have left school, preparing them to make good education and health choices with the best chances of making a sustainable living. The transition points the project aims to address are: • From primary to lower secondary education • From lower-secondary to upper secondary education • Into education for out-of-school girls • Into vocational training, further education or sustainable livelihood for older out-of-school girls and girls leaving school Underpinning all the educational transition points above, the project will also support transition from adolescence to adulthood for the girls from a SRH perspective, boosting girls’ self-worth so they do not only see themselves (or are seen) as wives or mothers and recognise that they have a choice when it comes to deciding when to get married, have children and how they would choose to plan their futures. The project’s Theory of Change (ToC) posits that the inequity in education and learning achievement gaps for Nepal’s most marginalised girls can be addressed by ensuring equitable access to quality learning and skills development across the education continuum. Inefficiencies in Nepal’s education system and social, cultural and geographical barriers to access have led to poor learning outcomes for marginalised girls, which inhibit individual and community agency and leadership and ultimately hinder socio-economic improvements in the country. Transitioning girls forward, VSO’s SfS (GEC-1), Teaching to Learn and various International Citizen Service (ICS) education projects in Nepal have proven that increasing the engagement of local actors is a powerful pathway to change in contexts where the realisation of inclusive national policies fall short. Increased engagement through ‘people to people’ interventions transforms education system stakeholders from bystanders into actors who are inspired to participate and contribute to safer and healthier schools, better engaged learners, more skilled teachers, improved school management, increased government capacity and better networks and knowledge sharing. People to people interventions in SfS include big sister-little sister mentoring, peer learning support, teacher and District Education Offices (DEO) staff accompaniment and coaching, and community engagement through a wide variety of volunteering roles and expertise sharing from implementing partners and resource partners. Through working in partnership with DEOs and existing government education systems from school and community level to the Ministry level, the project will contribute to changes to school, community, district and national inclusive education policies and practices. We will be working in partnership with Global Action Nepal (GAN) and Aasaman Nepal as implementing partners, and British Council Nepal and Mercy Corps as resource and collaboration and partners, respectively.