Major Activities for this project will include the following 8 steps:
1. Plan will interact with existing children and youth organizations and girls' clubs to identify interest in the project.
2. The identified girls' groups will receive training in gender equality issues; group organization, management and networking techniques; production and dissemination of media materials using a variety of different media forms; and child and women's rights.
3. Ten girls with a special talent and keen interest to enter the journalistic profession will be identified amongst the groups and supported to receive an internship with media partners and/or courses in local media schools.
4. Adult journalists will be trained in child rights, ethical reporting on gender and violence against girls and how to support youth journalists with an emphasis on female journalists who will continue to work with the girls' clubs as a vocational mentor to the adolescent girls.
5. Basic audio/video equipment and other materials will be provided for reporting purposes to girls' groups, adult journalists and the media centers and radio stations supporting them.
6. Media materials produced by participating girls' clubs will be broadcasted/distributed at the community, national, and regional level with support of Plan's partnering radio stations and Plan's Kids Waves project as well as through negotiations with other radio and TV channels and print media for the inclusion of girls' materials.
7. Plan will support each girls' group with a small budget to allow the groups to implement their advocacy plans at the local level.
8. To ensure that adolescent girls have the chance to network and learn from their peers' experiences, Plan will support the girls with opportunities to meet and exchange during training sessions and follow up meetings including the possibility of mobile phones, blogging, and other social media forms as exchange tools.
Plan's 'Because I am a Girl' series is an annual report that looks thematically at 'The State of the World's Girls'. This year's report looks at girls and the global economy, at the possibilities it presents and the obstacles girls will need to overcome to become active and equal economic citizens. Today's economic and social inequalities are costly - not only for the half a billion girls growing up in developing countries, but also for the societies they live in and the global economy as a whole. The Because I am a Girl report examines how gender inequality and discrimination begin early in a girl's life and must be addressed to change her economic future. Investing in girls and young women is not only the 'right' thing to do, it is also a smart move with far-reaching benefits. An understanding of the economic potential of girls and young women is growing throughout the world as governments, international institutions and businesses alike recognize that strategic investments in equality and economic opportunity for girls yield real returns and transform lives.
For girls to reach their economic potential, vocational training is one of the most important ways we can prepare girls to enter the labor market. Young women need skills that are appropriate to the changing needs of the market in their country or region. Social networks are also an important form of capital for girls and a support that they need to navigate life successfully--an area which rarely comes into focus within programmes or policies that affect girls. Friendships, contacts, networks, mentors and role models help to build life skills that are crucial in girls' lives and in the workplace. However, in many parts of the world, girls' mobility becomes severely restricted as they reach puberty and as families seek to protect girls out of fear of abuse, molestation, and rape. For girls whose mobility is restricted, social media such as blogging and text messaging offer a useful way of maintaining friendships and networks outside the home.
In Ghana, 29% of the population lives below the national poverty line. Youth, especially adolescent girls, face particularly difficult challenges in securing education and employment. The government of Ghana has introduced school fees to make up for funding cuts in the education system, causing an immediate drop in school enrolment as families could not afford tuition. Adolescent girls are often relied on for household and childcare tasks and are more likely to be pulled out of school when household budgets are tight. Employment creates a challenge for all youth, but especially for girls. As of 2000, the United Nations cited the unemployment rate for youth age 15-24 in Ghana at 16%, 12.7% for men and 19.4% for women. In 2009, the youth unemployment rate in Sub-Saharan Africa was cited by the World Bank as standing at around 21%, the second highest rate in the world after the Middle East and North Africa, and 3.5 times higher than the adult unemployment rate in the region. Ghana has not been spared this major socio-economic problem. Several factors account for high youth unemployment in Africa, including low quality of education and a mismatch between labor market needs and available skills. The media landscape in Ghana includes 89 radio broadcasting stations and seven television broadcasting stations. After a short period of television programming intended for education and national development, many educational and cultural programs were lost during major budget cuts by the government and replaced by cheap foreign programs. News for children and youth does not exist in Ghana. Children's departments and policies are absent in all television stations, and there is a need for more cultural and educational programs throughout the country to increase awareness of children's and girls' issues in Ghana and the rest of West Africa.
Plan's Commitment to Action attempts to address the issues outlined here by providing an opportunity for girls to build vocational skills, increase their access to jobs, network with peers and mentors, and raise awareness of and advocate for the elimination of gender discrimination and violence against girls through quality media reporting on adolescent girls' issues in West Africa.
The objectives of this project are:
- To train at least 140 adolescent girls in media production and journalism skills and provide them with opportunities to access media-related jobs
- To establish an internship program in the media field for at least 10 talented adolescent girls that will build their vocational skills and position them as civic and economic actors in their societies
- To strengthen the capacity of a minimum of 140 adolescent girls engaged in children and youth organizations from Ghana to advocate against gender discrimination by making efficient use of diverse forms of media
- To train 30 adult journalists in issues facing adolescent girls in West Africa
- To increase the awareness of the public on the needs of adolescent girls in West Africa at the community, national, and regional levels by reaching a radio and television audience of approximately 1,000,000.