EMPOWER

This project aims to enhance equitable and inclusive literacy and life skills for internally displaced people (IDP) and host community children (ages 6 to 12) particularly girls and children living with disabilities in Gao and Mopti Mali. The project is centred around building the capacity of IDP and women-led organizations’ financial support through grants and empowering them to promote educational rights of host and internally displaced children. Project activities include: (1) undertaking an organizational capacity Assessment for each IDP and women-led organizations; (2) providing tailored training and capacity-building initiatives for IDP and women-led organizations to strengthen institutional capacities women’s leadership and the delivery of gender-responsive play-based approaches; (3) supporting the IDP and women-led organizations to undertake community needs assessments; (4) providing small grants to IDP and women-led organizations to deliver educational interventions at the community and school level to address gender-related barriers to girls’ and boys’ learning; (5) supporting community engagement and awareness campaigns aimed at dismantling harmful gender norms pertaining to girls’ and internally displaced children’s education and rights; and (6) facilitating IDP and women-led organizations participation in educational coalitions networks and forums where they can share their advocacy goals with wider and influential audiences. The project engages local education authorities parents community and religious leaders to address the intersectional barriers preventing host and internally displaced children from benefitting from a quality education. The project expects to reach 37 545 children from IDP and host communities including 5 256 children living with disabilities and 69 338 parents community and religious leaders and other community members. The project expects to indirectly reach more than 753 809 community members.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved performance of local IDP and women-led organizations working on gender-responsive education; (2) increased access to gender-responsive quality education for host and internally displaced children particularly girls and children living with disabilities; and (3) enhanced collective action of local IDP and women-led organizations to advance the right to gender-responsive quality education for host and internally displaced children particularly girls and children living with disabilities.