GEM (Girls Education Movement) TRAINING – PRETTIER PROJECT

PRETTIER
The Prevention and Response to Teenage Pregnancy Through life skills, Income, and formal Education Re-entry (PRETTIER) Project is a 24-month project funded by the European Commission. It is implemented by a consortium of three partners, RICE West Nile, PALM Corps, and SPACE in the Districts of Zombo (Kango and Abanga Sub-counties) and Madi-Okollo (Anyiribu and Okollo Sub-counties). The project’s expected outcome is to prevent teenage pregnancy and build the economic resilience of out-of-school girls including teenage mothers. The project has three objectives namely.

• Objective 1: Improved enrolment and retention among girl-child in primary schools.

• Objective 2: Increased opportunity for gainful employment for Out-of-School Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) and boys.

• Objective 3: Strengthened the institutional capacity of the consortium partners and local authorities.

The PRETTIER project outreach is 4,240 direct beneficiaries, i.e., 3200 direct beneficiaries (1,600 girls and 1,600 boys) are In-school adolescents to be trained on SRHR and child rights through Girls Education Movement (GEM) clubs. While 440 girls and 40 boys out of school are targeted for psychosocial support, life, vocational, and business skills training. Additional 20 Out-of-school girls are to be supported to re-enter formal school. The project also targets 540 Parents/Guardians to be trained on parenting skills and child rights. In addition, 40 local authorities and 36 community-based facilitators (16 Education Mentors and 20 Animators) will participate in the Project activities.

The GEM club
As one of the activities to train the 3200 direct beneficiaries, Headteachers (Ezoo P/S & Luuku P/S), Senior women teachers, and senior male teachers of various primary schools within the Kango sub-county held training at the Kango sub-county headquarters facilitated by the Inspector of schools, Zombo District Local Government – Mr. Jalar with the objective as follows:
To clarify the roles and responsibilities of SWT/SM.
Outline the operational procedures and frameworks for their work(policies and reporting).
To ensure issues affecting girls and boys in schools are addressed systematically and adequately.
To identify and support children with SNE to address their educational challenges.
To identify and recommend key areas for capacity enhancement and key resource materials to use for the senior women and senior men teachers.

However The Inspector of schools, Zombo District Local Government – Mr. Jalar applauded the representatives of the schools for the performance of the girls in the previous (2022) PLE examination and encouraged them to work harder and be friendly with the learners in order to make the learning process interesting and fun. He went ahead to urge the trainees to be reliable in order to make the club a success based on past experiences on similar projects.