Girls’ Education for a Better Future in the Great Lakes Region - Response to COVID-19

This project supports the previously funded project “Girls' Education for a Better Future in the Great Lakes Region” (EDUFAM) to respond to issues that have been further exacerbated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis in Burundi the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. These activities work to particularly protect girls and adolescent girls from violence and exploitation and ensure that they can continue in their education through mitigating additional barriers caused by COVID-19. Project activities include: (1) replicating and disseminating official messages from governments and the World Health Organization to target communities; (2) disseminating awareness-raising messages to parents and students especially on the radio particularly to girls and adolescent girls on the importance of following national distance learning programs; (3) providing teaching materials to identified girls and adolescents girls and schools; (4) assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on the schooling of project beneficiaries and on the prevalence of sexual gender based violence (SGBV) in the targeted communities; (5) consulting with and strengthening education stakeholders to prepare for the reopening of schools; and (6) raising awareness and mobilizing communities on the prevention and care of SGBV especially for girls and adolescent girls who have left school as well as on the reintegration of children in school in particular the refugee displaced returning and disabled girls and adolescents girls.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) EDUFAM project communities informed on COVID-19 protection measures and the return and retention of girls/adolescent girls in school; (2) distance learning initiatives supported for the continuity of learning especially for RDRD girls/adolescents girls; and (3) support for the COVID-19 protection/prevention measures in EDUFAM beneficiary schools.