If a girl finishes education, she has much more chance to stay healthy and happy, make a decent income, be engaged in community life and raise healthy and educated children. In Ethiopia school dropout rates are high among girls, especially in rural areas. This proposal describes an innovative approach to ensure that adolescent girls attend and complete primary and secondary education.

Education Matters, Especially for Girls (2015-2017): this pilot project identified and tackled a range of barriers, which kept girls from going to school or caused them to drop out. Through strong cooperation between schools, government and communities, significantly more girls went to and stayed in school and support for girls’ education increased within the wider community.

Education Matters More (2018–2020): this follow up project was successful in reaching more girls and keeping them in school, starting from action-oriented youth-led research. Efforts were expanded to 10 schools.

Education Matters, Now More Than Ever!(2021-2023):  The proposed project will build on the experiences of these two previous projects, which include:

• The importance of establishing multi-stakeholder steering committees and task forces to enhance cooperation with local government and to ensure monitoring, day to day operations and sustainability of the project.
• The value of action-oriented youth-led research in empowering girls and boys, strengthening their skills and participation and ensuring that solutions reflect their specific needs and wish
• The important role girls clubs play in raising awareness about and counseling girls on sexual and reproductive health related
• The benefits of sanitary rooms and teaching girls how to produce (and use) their own sanitary pads.
• The importance of building the capacity of girls, club coordinators, teachers, health extension workers and others in how to make schools, clubs and services girl-friendly.
• The need to mobilize parents and other community members to tackle obstacles to girls’ educatio

The overall Objective of the proposed project is to ensure that girls in the target areas attend and complete primary and secondary education.

We will expand our intervention area with 10 new schools. We will work in a total of 20 schools, primary and secondary. Existing structures will be strengthened. The following new elements will be added in order to reach girls in an even more effective way: