Out of School Girls' Intervention

To ensure that school leavers (OOS) girls have demand-driven work readiness skills and better access to income generating activities, Mercy Corps has been implementing several activities, including: enhancing girls' knowledge on financial literacy and business skills, link girls to vocational training opportunities in Kailali, and establishing the STEM Young Women Entrepreneurs Association. Additionally, the project has also been working on establishing and providing peer-to-peer counselling services and continues operating the Girls' Transition Fund.

STEM works with girls who have dropped out from grade 6 to 10 from STEM school from the year 2009 till date. The project provides these girls with demand driven work readiness skills and access to income generating activities. The project has designed (OOS) girls club where they get Youth Financial Literacy Training (YFLT), Business Skills Development Training (BSD) or Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) classes thereafter take Vocational Skills (VT) and Girls Transition Fund (GTF) a low interest collateral free loans. This prepares these girls to venture into various career opportunities by providing prerequisite knowledge for their career aspirations, boost their self-efficacy with clear indications that they not only have increased self-worth and confidence, but they now can envisage their futures through a more self-managed, aspiring and fulfilling lens. The unique aspect of OOS intervention is its robust design where in a girl have the required skills first, be it FLT, BSD, VT before starting or expanding their business. This design helps reject the underlying assumption that young girls are not suitable for business.

Vocational Training

Vocational training (VT) is skill-based training that provides knowledge and skills that can be utilised for employment. The STEM II project provides various forms of training based on Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) curricula through CTEVT-affiliated institutes. The vocational trainings are provided as per the needs of the people and covers a wide range of industries, including agriculture, engineering, management, tourism, computers, etc. The training workshop duration ranges from 39 hours to 1500 hours. Most of the training institutes provide training on subjects such as tailoring, vegetable production, housekeeping, cooking/baking etc.

The project emphasises VT for girls/ young women who are from female-headed households and the main objective of the training is to produce a skilled female workforce that have skills relevant to current and emerging market needs, helping them to improve their employability and develop entrepreneurship skills. Once the girls graduate from such training, they become eligible for the Girls’ Transition Fund (see more below). The second round of vocational training (VT) based on the CTEVT curriculum (beauty parlour, hand embroidery, machine hojiyari (clothing and undergarment making), and vegetable farming) was delivered to 292 OOS girls through four training institutes. The total training time was 390 hours. The objective of the training was to develop girls’ vocational skills in order to enhance their opportunities for employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship. The training methodology included lectures, group work, experience-sharing, discussion and demonstration, and used tools such as flip charts, flash cards. While 20 percent of the training time was devoted to theoretical, 80 percent of the training was practical.