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Preventing Child, Early and Forced Marriages (CEFM) Empowering Girls to negotiate for continuing/completing school, delaying marriage, accessing appropriate services and schemes to build a future for themselves project in Odisha Request for Proposal for Baseline BACKGROUND Considering India’s large cohort of adolescents, with one in every 10 Indian an adolescent girl - they are the harbingers of the entire country’s future, representing an inspiring dividend for the country’s socio-economic progress. A World Bank study has demonstrated that increasing the uptake of secondary education of girls by even 1% results in an annual income increase of 0.3% per capita for any nation, and hence, investing in young girls is essential to ensure India's progress too. Adolescence represents a formative period with changes that cut across biological, physical, psychological, and behavioral domains. For over 35 years, the Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3), has worked to empower women and girls in India, equipping them with knowledge and skills to realize their rights, access opportunities, transform communities, and achieve gender equality. At the core of our work and approach is a belief that achieving gender equality is essential to development, democracy, and progress. Project Intervention In the proposed implementation district of Nayagarh, only 27.1 % of girls complete 10 years of schooling (NFHS-5). The Child Sex Ratio of Nayagarh is 855, the lowest among all districts of Odisha, and one of the lowest in the country as well (Census 2011). Child marriage prevalence in the district at 35.7%, is much higher than the national average of 23.3%. Every third marriage in the district is a child marriage, 2nd highest in the state – an increase in child marriage from 31.4% to 35.7% between NFHS-4 to NFHS-5. A C3 survey found that 1 in 6 girls were afraid of being teased or harassed while using public transport and/or on the way to school and that 24% of adolescents have faced domestic violence/harassment at home. Another reason which contributes to a high dropout rate is the lack of knowledge regarding career options provided in secondary- level schools. Most schools do not provide skilling or vocational counselling to students. Out of 9873 schools in Odisha, only 28 schools provide such counselling at the secondary level (Educational Statistics at a Glance report, 2018) C3 project on protecting the rights of girls in Dashpalla block of Nayagarh in Odisha by preventing child marriages ended in December 2023. Building agency, aspiration, enabling environment and providing access to education and entitlements, were the four broad project strategies. The project has worked with individuals, systems and communities to ensure that girls receive holistic support. The project, initiated in February 2022, uses the platforms offered by the Departments of Woman and Child Development, Education and Health to reach out to adolescent girls and boys, parents, PRIs, teachers, principals and frontline workers. C3 is also engaged with faith-based leaders to promote girls’ education and prevent child marriages. A proven strategy to ensure completion of school is to prevent child marriages. So far, C3’s extensive work on the ground in the project site prevented child marriages and reduced school dropout by linking over 12,000 girls with life skills, agency building, and education and health services. C3 also engages with faith-based leaders, school principals, teachers, frontline workers and child protection officials, who were oriented and trained in preventing child marriage and increasing school enrolment and retention for girls. Under the proposed grant from Echidna Foundation, C3 proposes to expand the work from one block in Nayagarh to all eight blocks covering 50,000 girls. Below are Intended Outcomes key indicators that will be measured to highlight impact at the end of the project. 1. Improved school completion and learning outcomes achieved via educational enrichment, accessing scholarships and other available schemes: The project will aim to increase secondary school completion rate among girls, achieved via educational enrichment, support in procuring scholarships and accessing other entitlements. The project will focus on supporting girls to complete schooling and thus protect themselves from child, early or forced marriage, enabling them to choose a career pathway and work towards achieving it. Increase the number of adolescent girls enrolled/re-enrolled in schools Increased percentage of adolescent girls who have completed secondary and higher secondary education Improved educational outcomes around specific subjects Increase in the number of girls accessing scholarships and entitlements 2. Increased awareness, understanding and support from families and community members for empowering adolescent girls: The project will also focus on creating a conducive environment in the families and communities to support girls to exercise their rights. Increased collective action of the communities to highlight issues and solutions for supporting adolescent girls’ education Increased commitment towards ensuring that there are no child marriages in the communities Increased knowledge and awareness of the community members on the entitlements for supporting girl education outcomes 3. Improved ecosystem/community support to make education, health, nutrition information and services accessible to help retain girls in school: C3 proposes to work through schools to build self-confidence, critical life skills and enable young girls to overcome the pressures of discontinuation of education. Sessions will be delivered to girls directly. Content will also include awareness of gender, gender-based discrimination, s |