Description
“Simameni – Stand Together for Girls’ Secondary Education in Uganda" is a project that seeks to improve access, retention, and educational opportunities for secondary school-aged girls within selected communities of the Western and Teso regions in Uganda.
Objectives
To achieve the project’s outcomes, the CTF/FCE and UNATU collaborate closely with the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES). The project is working towards achieving its outcomes by:
- improving conditions within schools to make them safer, more responsive, and more inclusive for girls, and
- fostering support for girls’ education within families and communities by influencing gender norms and supporting policy implementation.
Activities
All Simameni activities aim to provide training or technical advice to the different stakeholders to help them understand gender equality norms and support girls’ secondary education so that they can actively work to provide safe school environments as well as gender-responsive and gender-sensitive strategies and tools. Some of the project activities include: teacher training on topics such as the prevention of school-related gender-based violence, gender-responsive classroom and school; school community mobilizations; meetings with head teachers; regional campaigns promoting girls’ education (radio ads, talk shows, community drives, etc.); school clubs; community exchanges.
Outcomes
Simameni addresses some of the socio-cultural barriers that hinder access to and retention of girls at the secondary school level by working with individuals and communities to inform, to influence social norms and to show the advantages of girls’ education for the girls themselves, their families, their communities, and the Ugandan society in general. Additionally, the project works towards the provision of gender-responsive education in the selected secondary schools of the Teso and Western regions of Uganda in order to make them safer, more welcoming, and considerate of girls’ needs.
