Learning Through Education and Access to Skills for Employment for Refugees and Host Communities

This project aims to empower adolescent girls and young women in the Kalobeyei settlement and the Kakuma refugee camp and host communities of the Turkana district of Kenya. The project works to improve the enrolment and retention of girls in upper primary and secondary school levels in Kalobeyei and surrounding communities and to provide gender responsive job market-based skills training in Kalobeyei and Kakuma. The project works towards building girl-friendly school environments providing targeted learning support to adolescent girls and young women and generating parent and community support for girls’ education. Project activities include: (1) improving the pedagogical skills of approximately 180 teachers in 15 schools (8 host and 7 refugee) to ensure that lessons are planned and delivered in a quality gender-responsive and inclusive manner and in a safe classroom environment; (2) providing remedial lessons that provide additional study time to approximately 2 800 adolescent girls and young women at risk of dropping out due to poor performance; (3) engaging parents community (particularly men and boys) and religious leaders to foster safe and supportive environments for girls’ education and to mitigate the risk of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV); (4) delivering multi-media campaign on gender equitable participation in skills training and trades; and (5) supporting young women through mentorship programs that support life-skills. It is expected that the project will directly benefit 6 515 girls adolescent girls and young women (between the ages of 12 and 25) and indirectly 42 465 beneficiaries (including 6 798 boys enrolled within the targeted schools).

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved learning outcomes from girls (between the ages of 12 and 18) and young women (between the ages of 19 and 25) particularly refugees at upper primary and secondary school levels in Kalobeyei; and (2) increased employment of young women (between the ages of 19 and 25) including refugees and out-of-school young women in gender responsive market-based skills training in the Kalobeyei settlement host communities and Kakuma refugee camp.