Project profile — Preventing Child, Early and Forced Marriage through Open, Distance, and Technology-based Education

• Tanzania (20.00%)
• Ghana (20.00%)
• Mozambique (20.00%)
• Bangladesh (20.00%)
• Pakistan (20.00%)

• Secondary education:
Secondary education (11320) (20.00%)
Vocational training (11330) (25.00%)
• Post-Secondary Education: Higher education (11420) (20.00%)
• Government And Civil Society, General: Human rights (15160) (10.00%)
• Communication: Information and communication technology (ICT) (22040) (20.00%)
• Banking And Financial Services: Informal/semi-formal financial intermediaries (24040) (5.00%)

• Trade development (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (significant objective)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (significant objective)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)

This project builds on Canada’s advocacy and awareness-raising efforts to prevent child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) and support already married girls in the selected Commonwealth countries. COL proposes to scale up its work to increase access to secondary education and skills training for girls/women in resource-poor contexts through open, distance and technology-based learning (ODL), which helps create enabling conditions for their sustainable livelihoods. The project focuses its work in up to four Commonwealth countries (Bangladesh, Mozambique, Tanzania and Pakistan) which were selected based on the high percentage of women who were first married before the age of 18. Working with existing partners, COL identifies priority communities with a high prevalence of CEFM and the skills needed to equip girls/women with education and skills training to enhance their livelihoods. Training is provided to partner institutions/organizations to strengthen systems, identify appropriate technologies, build staff capacity, and provide quality content such as Open Education Resources (OER) to support the development of appropriate education and training courses. Simultaneously, the process of sensitizing the community and recruiting girls/women to be educated or trained is completed. Girls/women enroll in two streams: a medium-term secondary schooling, and short-term skills training.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased access to safe, quality, gender sensitive open, distance and technology-based learning (ODL) opportunities for girls/women in rural areas in selected countries; (2) increased equitable participation in quality ODL by disadvantaged girls/women in rural areas of selected countries; and (3) enhanced economic leadership and family decision-making for disadvantaged girls/women in rural areas of selected countries.

Results achieved until the end of the project (March 2019) include: (1) 1,181 child, early and forced marriages were actively prevented; (2) 654 staff members were trained and have the capacity to develop gender-sensitive learning resources for open, distance, and technology-enabled learning; (3) 1,176 community events for raising awareness on the negative consequences of child, early and forced marriage were held across 258 communities, reaching 378,072 community members; (4) 244 safe learning environments were established for women’s and girls’ teaching and learning; (5) 29,848 women and girls successfully completed life skills courses; (6) 29,801 women and girls completed vocational skills training; (7) 4,934 women attended employment awareness and placement camps; and (8) 6,899 women and girls applied for employment, and 6,645 were successful.

• Proactive disclosure