Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village

Limited gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education is putting students at risk of unintended pregnancy, exploitation and violence, and reduced access to quality learning environments and continued education. We will address these challenges by laying the groundwork for a systemic shift in gender equity and sexual health education in Rwanda. We will start by training 450 Rwandan teachers in the use of technology for gender equity and sexual health education through our Educational Resilience Program, reaching 75,000 students in the first two years of the program. This training will instruct beneficiaries from schools across the nation in student-centered teaching methods and digital teaching tools in order to facilitate content dissemination and peer-to-peer education. If scaled internationally, with content and approach adapted to cultural context, this training would reduce unintended pregnancies, lessen vulnerability to exploitation and violence, keep more girls in school, and improve learning outcomes globally.

Many Rwandan secondary school students have received only limited instruction in gender equity and sexual and reproductive health. This contributes to a significant rate of unintended pregnancies, inhibiting girls’ access to education. Despite efforts to integrate sexual and reproductive health into the national curriculum, available data suggests that the risk of teenage pregnancy is increasing. According to the Rwanda Demographic Health Survey of 2014-2015, one in five Rwandan girls are mothers by the age of 19. Further estimates suggest that over 78,000 Rwandan teenagers experienced a pregnancy between 2016 and 2019. This frequently forces girls to leave school before graduating. UNESCO estimates that while about 54% of girls will complete primary school, only about 15% of girls will complete upper secondary school. Rwandan health professionals attribute these challenges to a lack of sexual and reproductive health knowledge, with teachers often struggling to fill the gap. Limited content knowledge, lack of clarity around appropriate lesson plans, and uninformed perspectives among teachers present significant hurdles to students, while ineffective teaching methods and technologies compound the problem. To engage students in the learning process, build trust in the classroom, and keep girls in school, accurate content and interactive teaching methods are needed.

By training 450 teachers in sexual health education and interactive teaching methods and technologies, and by encouraging participating teachers to share these resources with peers in each of Rwanda’s 30 districts, we will lay the foundation for a transformational shift in the Rwandan education system. A shift towards equity and inclusion for all students, safeguarding young people from violence and empowering girls to stay in school. Training in gender equity and sexual health topics ranging from gender-based violence to menstruation and family planning will enable teachers to cover these topics accurately and sensitively while acting as a support system for their students. It will also enable teachers to oversee the creation of life skills clubs, giving students a voice in gender equity and sexual health programming. Training in student-centered teaching methods and digital teaching technologies like Microsoft Office 365 and Quizlet will build on this by helping teachers create an interactive and adaptive learning environment. By keeping students engaged in the conversation and expanding their access to learning materials, these resources will strengthen student understanding and enable them to make safe and informed decisions regarding their personal health and well-being.

The ultimate beneficiaries of the Educational Resilience Program will include approximately 75,000 Rwandan secondary school students between the ages of 13 and 21 over the next two years. Many of these young people have received limited and inconsistent instruction in pivotal sexual and reproductive health concepts like consent and contraception. This ignorance elevates the risk of unintended pregnancy, HIV transmission, and exploitation and violence, and, as a consequence, it makes young women more likely to leave school before graduating. This vulnerability was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which cut most Rwandan students off from formal instruction for approximately seven months between March and October 2020. 

Our understanding of beneficiary need is informed by over a decade of experience teaching gender equity and sexual and reproductive health to hundreds of Rwandan youth. Since the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village’s founding in 2008, we have taught these concepts to over 1,400 Rwandan secondary school students between the ages of 14 and 21. In that time, our teaching has evolved in response to internal student surveys and focus groups, as well as past collaborations with institutions and organizations like Kasha, a company founded to give East African women affordable access to contraceptives; the University of Rwanda School of Nursing and Midwifery; and the Health Development Initiative, an organization working to improve sexual and reproductive health conditions in Rwanda through education and advocacy. It is with this collective understanding that we will resolve beneficiary need by training Rwanda’s teachers to better understand and address their students’ health needs through compassionate and responsive instruction and communication.

Most Rwandan students depend on non-interactive learning environments which take an inconsistent or uninformed approach to health education. Our solution responds by training teachers in gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education, as well as interactive, project-based teaching methods and digital teaching technologies. We will also ask teachers to create life skills clubs, giving students a shared voice in programming. These resources will build understanding and keep girls in school by increasing student engagement in the learning environment and by safeguarding students’ physical and mental health from risks like gender-based violence and unintended pregnancy.

We selected prototype for our solution’s stage of development because we have determined the Educational Resilience Program’s content and implementation timeline, and we have decided who will deliver the teacher training and where that training will be provided. These decisions were made in collaboration with the Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology, who will participate in delivering the teacher training sessions, and the Rwanda Ministry of Education, who will assist in coordinating teacher participation. With the financial support of the Mastercard Foundation, we have also received sufficient funding to launch the Educational Resilience Program on August 1, 2021, and continue the program through 2022. Our hope is that program success and access to a larger audience of potential partners and funders will enable us to grow the Educational Resilience Program and extend its lifetime beyond 2022.

Our solution is innovative because it will teach gender equity and sexual and reproductive health on a mass scale in the Rwandan context, strengthening student confidence and improving educational outcomes while building a more equitable education system by combatting misinformation in an accurate and informed way. It will teach these subjects with clarity and without judgment, and it will equip Rwandan teachers to do the same. Our pedagogical and technological approach to teaching these subjects is also innovative. We place a strong focus on harm reduction by working to prevent violence and exploitation, and we have committed to engaging students in the learning process by encouraging the adoption of interactive teaching methods and technologies. Few Rwandan teachers have significant professional experience with programs like Microsoft Office 365. Giving teachers the training to adopt these systems will enable meaningful innovation in gender equity and sexual health education. Our solution is catalytic because participating teachers will share what they learn with colleagues at schools in each of Rwanda’s 30 districts, helping to transform Rwanda’s teaching culture and enabling others to use this technology and teaching mindset in other educational spheres. We are also working with the Rwanda Ministry of Education to implement this training program. Evidence gathered by the Ministry of Education could inform improvements to the education system’s approach to gender equity and sexual health education, student-centered teaching, and digital teaching tools, enabling Rwanda to serve as a model for other national education systems experiencing similar challenges.

We will launch the Educational Resilience Program on June 29, 2021, with teacher training sessions scheduled to begin on August 1, 2021. We anticipate training 450 teachers in the first two years of the program, between August 2021 and year-end 2022. We expect this training to reach 75,000 students at lower and upper secondary schools across Rwanda’s 30 districts. As the program progresses, we will discuss opportunities to scale.

To assess progress towards our impact goals, we will track the number of teachers who successfully complete the teacher training program, the rate of gender equity and sexual and reproductive health content adoption, the rate of student-centered teaching methodology adoption, the rate of digital classroom technologies adoption, and measurable changes in classroom participation. We aim for at least 90% of participating teachers to complete the training program, with tracking informed by attendance records, participant evaluation data, and a training report. We will evaluate changes in student participation and the adoption of gender equity and sexual and reproductive health content, student-centered teaching methods, and digital classroom technologies through monthly teacher self-reporting and classroom observation sessions. School visits will be conducted three months and nine months after the relevant training session to assess the adoption of these resources. We aim for at least 80% of participating schools to adopt the gender equity and sexual and reproductive health content covered by the Educational Resilience Program and form student-led life skills clubs to more fully engage students in these topics.

Eighteen full time staff. This includes our special projects coordinator, academic and career resources director, school principal, strategy and policy advisor, executive director, information technology coordinator, senior nurse, and monitoring and evaluation manager, as well as the head of school and deputy head of school of the Gashora Girls Academy.

We have been teaching gender equity and sexual and reproductive health topics in an informed, sensitive, and scientifically accurate way since we first opened the doors of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in December 2008. Our approach has been informed by this experience and expertise, working in conversation with student surveys and focus groups, as well as input from health education partners at institutions and organizations like Kasha, the University of Rwanda, and the Health Development Initiative. Over the past twelve years, this has enabled us to bring an effective gender equity and sexual health education to over 1,400 young people in Rwanda. Now, in the past year, we have had the opportunity to bring our approach to gender equity and sexual health education to scale by working in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and the Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology. Welcoming its first class of students in 2011, the Gashora Girls Academy is a Microsoft showcase school with significant experience in the use of digital teaching technologies, student-centered teaching, and a growth-mindset approach to education and professional development. The teachers and administrative leadership of the Gashora Girls Academy have also benefited from extensive training from Team4Tech in the use of digital technologies in the creation of hybrid and remote learning environments, knowledge which they are eager to share with teachers from across Rwanda.

Staff members involved in developing the Educational Resilience Program are Rwandan nationals, including teachers, school administrators, and public servants working in the Rwanda Ministry of Education. The development and implementation of the Educational Resilience Program has been led by Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura, Aloys Kagimbura, Atete Rugege, and Theophile Habiyambere. Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura is responsible for the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village’s strategic vision, as well as the management of staff and the implementation of key priorities. Aloys Kagimbura is a former teacher and head of school at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, and currently serves as our special projects coordinator. Atete Rugege and Theophile Habiyambere are the current head of school and deputy head of school, respectively, at the Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology. Atete Rugege previously served as country manager at New Faces New Voices Rwanda, an organization working towards the economic empowerment of women, and Theophile Habiyambere previously worked as a math teacher and director of academics at Kagarama Secondary School in Kigali, Rwanda. Aloys Kagimbura is the lead training coordinator of the Educational Resilience Program’s gender equity and sexual and reproductive health component, and Theophile Habiyambere is the lead training coordinator of the Educational Resilience Program’s information and communications technology and teaching methodology components.

We are applying because we believe that the support of this community would help us achieve long-term program effectiveness, enabling us to continuously strengthen our approach to gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education while working to expand the Educational Resilience Program to other communities across East Africa and around the world. Increased exposure in the media and at relevant conferences would help us connect with potential funders, allowing us to continue the Educational Resilience Program beyond 2022. Monitoring and evaluation and impact assessment support would help us determine program effectiveness and identify areas for improvement, strengthening the program during its initial 2021-2022 period and beyond. Proof of program effectiveness would also help us secure additional funding from the Mastercard Foundation and potentially other funders. Coaching and strategic advice on program inclusivity could help us consistently and reliably reach both men and women teachers, and it could help us encourage participation by both boys and girls in the gender equity and sexual and reproductive health components of the life skills clubs. This community could help us build a stronger program for the young men and women of Rwanda, creating long-term impact for the Rwandan education system and transformative and systemic change in gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education in Rwanda.

Support for monitoring and evaluation, including the collection and analysis of data, would strengthen our current approach. We currently plan to collect information through monthly self-reporting by participating teachers, as well as classroom observation sessions conducted three months and nine months after the relevant training session. Expert coaching and advice from this community would help us collect and analyze data more effectively, helping us make ongoing improvements to the Educational Resilience Program. Support for monitoring and evaluation would also help us demonstrate program effectiveness to funders and other potential partners, giving us the resources needed to extend the program beyond 2022 and expand its reach to new communities and countries. Support with service distribution would also help us plan for the expansion of the Educational Resilience Program to new countries in Africa and around the world. The Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village and Gashora Girls Academy work exclusively in the Rwandan context. While we have partners working in communities across Africa, we do not have experience in any other countries. Technological support could further strengthen the Educational Resilience Program by introducing our trainers to new platforms and programs. While we are confident in the effectiveness of Microsoft Office 365 and Quizlet, we would welcome any recommendations for new technological resources. Given the limited availability of digital resources in Rwandan schools, recommendations for accessible technologies useful in internet-poor environments would be welcome.

We have no specific partners in mind, but we would welcome partnerships with any members of this community interested in providing expert advice and strategic support in data collection and analysis, monitoring and evaluation, relevant educational technologies, and gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education. While we are confident in our ability to train teachers participating in the Educational Resilience Program in student-centered teaching methods, digital teaching technologies, and gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education, we believe that we could still benefit from the expert coaching and advice of this community. In line with our program’s emphasis on a growth-centered approach to professional development, we believe that there will always be room to improve our own approach to teacher training and student outreach.

We are qualified for this prize because we will train 450 teachers in gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education, student-centered teaching methods, and digital classroom technologies like Microsoft Office 365 and Quizlet. This training will enable teachers to provide their students with an informed, compassionate, and scientifically accurate education in gender equity and sexual health, encouraging the young people of Rwanda to make safe and healthy decisions for themselves and others. By giving young people the information and emotional support they need to make self-affirming choices, we will improve quality of life in communities across Rwanda by reducing gender-based violence and unintended pregnancies. This training will also equip teachers with the skills and resources needed to create a more interactive, student-centered learning environment, using discussions, group work, and other projects to build students’ interest and confidence in science, technology, and mathematics. Most Rwandan teachers depend on lectures, chalk boards, and textbooks to teach the sciences, with very little room for hands-on experimentation or critical thought. The Educational Resilience Program will show participating teachers how to incorporate hands-on activities into their lessons, giving them the means to improve educational outcomes and attract more Rwandan students to the STEM fields. This training will also increase digital literacy, giving young people the 21st century skills they need to secure sustainable employment and lead dignified lives. We will use the GM Prize to strengthen the Educational Resilience Program, growing its technological capacity and laying the groundwork for expansion.

We are qualified for this prize because the Educational Resilience Program will provide 450 teachers with training in gender equity and sexual and reproductive health education, as well as the technologies and teaching methods needed to disseminate this information effectively. This training will enable participating teachers to provide their students with an accurate education in these subjects. With this education, tens of thousands of girls across Rwanda will gain the confidence and knowledge they need to make safe and healthy choices. They will develop a stronger understanding of themselves, with increased information on topics like menstruation, contraception, consent, and healthy relationships helping them to understand their bodies and the choices available to them. They will also have the support they need to stay in school, preparing them to assume leadership roles in their communities. Acting as role models, these young women will have a cascading effect on gender equity in education and other fields. With the Government of Rwanda actively mandating increased women’s involvement in professional life, it is essential that we give girls the means to fulfill their academic and career potential. Tens of thousands of boys across Rwanda will also be engaged as partners in the work to build a more equitable society for women in Rwanda and around the world. We will use the Innovation for Women Prize to lay the groundwork for the expansion of the Educational Resilience Program, helping us to reach more women and girls across Rwanda and beyond.

We are qualified for this prize because inequitable access to education is a pressing issue for Rwandan girls, with challenges like unintended pregnancy frequently forcing girls to leave school. Our Educational Resilience Program will use a combination of gender equity and sexual health education and pedagogical and technological training to address these issues in an innovative and sustainable way. By giving 450 Rwandan teachers the content and tools they need to engage students in these topics, including training in student-centered teaching methods and digital classroom technologies like Microsoft Office 365, we will improve learning outcomes and keep girls in school. We will also lay the groundwork for a sustainable shift in the Rwandan education system. By working together with the Rwanda Ministry of Education, we aim to integrate our approach into Rwanda’s teaching culture. By helping teachers create a more interactive learning environment, we will also have a positive impact on other content areas. Most Rwandan teachers depend on lectures and textbooks to teach the sciences, with little room for student participation. Our training will encourage teachers to incorporate interactive activities into teaching science and math, drawing more students to STEM. Increased familiarity with programs like Microsoft Office 365 will also advance students’ digital literacy, preparing them for employment in Rwanda’s 21st century economy. We will use the GSR Prize to strengthen the Educational Resilience Program, laying the groundwork for expansion.