Education for young girls and boys for improved gender equality

Girl Up Initiative Uganda (GUIU) is a youth-led organisation that works to empower young people in vulnerable areas of Uganda. Through school-based programs, they spread knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights and increases awareness about gender equality.

GUIU’s programmes for young girls and boys; “Adolescent Girls Programme” and “Boy Champions Programme,” are their main activities and are carried out in school settings. The aim of these programmes is to enhance girls’ empowerment and leadership, especially in patriarchal environments where their chances are often restricted. Simultaneously, they involve young boys in issues of positive masculinity and motivate them to become allies in the work towards greater gender equality. GUIU works actively to combat gender-related injustices and gives girls the tools to become advocates for their own rights.

With the support of Social Initiative, GUIU will collaborate with our partner organisation in India, VOICE-4, in this project. Between 2025-2028, the organizations will collaborate to deepen and scale up GUIU’s school education programs.

VOICE-4 will contribute its expertise to further develop education alongside GUIU. Building on experience from scaling a successful model in India, they will collaboratively create a model tailored to the Ugandan context, where young university students will lead the teaching.

In 2024, Girl Up Initiative reached 2,039 young girls and 1,342 young boys.

The proportion of girls with enhanced knowledge and improved skills concerning adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights increased by 22%.
At baseline, 56% of the girls had knowledge about men’s violence against women, which had increased to 71% by the final survey.
The proportion of boys reporting an improved attitude towards gender equality increased from 47% to 71%.
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