Increased Reproductive Agency
A young woman who participates in Educate! expands her long-term view of what’s possible, increasing her agency in family planning decisions.
Our flagship model has a significant impact on key equity and reproductive health-related outcomes:
Women are 28% more likely to feel as though they can decide to work outside the home
Women that start families 3.5 years after graduating have fewer children than their peers
Men are 8% more likely to agree that a wife can ask a husband to use a condom
Men and women are 21% more likely to delay having children
21% decrease in the likelihood of young people having ever had a child at the time of follow up, 3.5 years after youth left secondary school.
Results from follow-on Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) which measured the impact of the Educate! Experience on students 3.5 years after graduating from secondary school.
Carney, Dana, et al. (2019). “Educate! Evaluation: Four-year Follow-up Report.”
Meet Abigail
Abigail has overcome cultural expectations and gender norms in pursuit of her dreams.
Throughout secondary school, Abigail worked tirelessly at home – caring for siblings, doing housework, working for the family catering business, and studying for her classes in every spare moment. She took on yet another responsibility as she joined Educate! — an opportunity in which she saw immediately how gaining entrepreneurship and leadership skills could open a path for her to achieve her ambitious dreams.
Her father, watching Abigail’s efforts to juggle it all, asked his daughter if life might be easier if she left school and got married.
“I told my father, ‘I know what I want. I want to be someone. The only way I can do this is to be educated.’”
“I know I’m a leader,” says Abigail, who aims to drive policy change that will empower young women in Uganda. She hopes to become a Member of Parliament to help systematize the education and support she received throughout her life so that all girls have the opportunities that she did.
Our results are comparable to programs focusing on reproductive health.
Paired with our education and skills impacts, these results improve youth life outcomes in the long term.
Educate! impacts youth in several areas related to family planning which suggest that, in the long term, our work empowers young women with the education and skills that increase their agency — making it more likely that they’ll choose to invest time and money in the areas they deem most beneficial to themselves, their families, and their communities.
Access to skills-based education and mentorship expands a young person’s view of what’s possible, improving their ability to pursue their dreams.
Learn more about Educate!’s impact on other outcome areas:
