Suchergebnisse

Adolescent Girls at Risk.

Adolescence is a time of rapid growth and development physically, emotionally, and cognitively. For girls it is a stage of life during which education, when effectively provided, can be transformative. One of the most significant problems in most developing countries is the failure of education systems to realize their potential for empowering adolescent girls by providing economically productive skills. Education during adolescence can protect girls from the risks of premature sexual initiation and allow them to postpone marriage and childbearing and experience a childhood without the burden of excessive domestic work. Schools have the potential to fully empower girls to translate learning and skill acquisition into remunerative employment, better health, effective citizenship, and gender equity in society later in life. This guide is one of a set of five GIRLS FIRST! Perspectives on Girl-Centered Programming thematic reviews addressing the five strategic priorities defined in the UN Joint Statement, "Accelerating Efforts to Advance the Rights of Adolescent Girls," which supports governments and partners in advancing key policies and programs for the hardest-to-reach adolescent girls.

Adolescence, wherever you live, is a potentially turbulent and challenging time and no less so in the four countries where we undertook our work. Here, transitions through adolescence are fraught with difficulties, in part due to the deeply embedded gender norms which determine what a girl can and cannot do and how she must be. Each specific context came with its own factors: multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities, remoteness, variable services (if any at all) and, sometimes, a policy and cultural context without recognition of adolescence, where the transition to adulthood is short or immediate rather than prolonged. Nevertheless, what we know from biological sciences is that adolescence is a developmental period – a time when the body and mind changes. These changes bring with them potential which in the right context, can open new opportunities. Our interest was in exploring that potential and how gendered norms might truncate opportunities and limit the development of capabilities which every young adult could aspire to own – the ability to have a political voice, to be educated, to be in good health, to have control over one's body, to be free from violence, to be able to own property and earn a livelihood, to be economically and politically empowered. We were intrigued by the very common experiences of adolescent girls across multiple contexts. This learning and sharing enabled us to explore in much greater depth what norms are and how they operate within political and institutional spaces at national and community levels. It also allowed us to explore the changing and different conceptual understandings of gendered social relations, gender equality and the usage of the term 'norm' to capture embedded, often implicit, informal rules by which people abide, and which are bound into the values people and societies accept implicitly, accept reluctantly or actively contest.

Jewish girls' issues are remarkably absent from conversations around multiculturalism and diversity. This workshop will highlight some of the unique challenges and strengths experienced by Jewish girls and identify strategies for building their resilience in an uncertain political climate.