Empowering adolescent girls in rural Bangladesh: Kishori Abhijan

In 2001, UNICEF initiated a pilot intervention to test whether livelihoods opportunities could ameliorate early marriage and other adverse outcomes for girls in rural Bangladesh. Kishori Abhijan (“Adolescent Girls’ Adventure”) aimed to lower school dropout rates, increase girls’ independent economic activity, and raise the age at which girls marry. Life-skills training consisted of enhancing self-esteem and leadership skills and providing education related to gender roles and discrimination, health and nutrition, and legislation and legal rights, particularly early marriage and girls’ and women’s rights. Livelihoods training included vocational skills. As noted in Promoting Healthy, Safe, and Productive Transitions to Adulthood Brief No. 13, the intervention was a joint effort of UNICEF, UNFPA, the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), and the Centre for Mass Education in Science (CMES). BRAC and CMES implemented the intervention, enrolling 15,000 girls. The life-skills component of Kishori Abhijan was later scaled up to enroll more than 250,000 girls in 58 districts