Empowering Adolescent Girls to LEAD through EDUCATION: EAGLE Work Plan Year 2

The project is part of the USAID strategy for DRC, which seeks to create positive outcomes across key sectors, including education, health, gender, and social protection. EAGLE supports the U.S. Policy on preventing and responding to violence against women and girls globally and the GDRC's Education Interim Plan. The project's overarching vision is to create opportunities for adolescent girls to acquire the education and skills necessary to become active, positive agents for change within their families, schools, and communities. The transition from primary school to secondary school is a critical period in young women's lives, beset by challenges such as increased direct opportunity costs, the need to contribute to family livelihood, and cultural pressures to marry and begin a family. EAGLE recognizes the interdependence among educational attainment, health outcomes, and equitable gender norms and aims to program across these areas to achieve meaningful positive change. The project targets individual and community change, necessary for transformation of long-held attitudes and practices. The three Intermediate Results of the EAGLE Results Framework are: Improved transition from primary to secondary school and improved completion rates for lower secondary school for EAGLE scholars Increased capacity for self-efficacy regarding life choices for EAGLE scholars Improved knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH), Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) prevention and response, and gender equality within EAGLE school communities EAGLE endeavors to provide equitable access to education in conflict and crisis-affected settings and lay the foundation for the socio-economic and health benefits that research has demonstrated accrue from girls staying in school through adolescence. These benefits include higher earnings, improved health status for self and children, delayed sexual debut/motherhood, reduced risk of contracting HIV, and increased civic participation. The project also aims to advance more positive gender norms and reduce harmful gender-related practices, including SGBV, among program participants. The EAGLE project will work closely with the Ministry of Primary, Secondary, and Professional Education (MEPSP), the Ministry of Gender, Family, and Children (MGFE), and the Ministry of Health (MOH) throughout the project. The project's implementation will be guided by the EAGLE Results Framework, which outlines the specific objectives, indicators, and activities for achieving the three Intermediate Results.