USAID/Honduras School-Based Violence Prevention Activity Quarterly Report – Q3 FY 2021

The project, known locally as Asegurando la Educación, aims to address school-based violence that impedes the delivery of education and its goals of access, retention, and learning. The project seeks to create safe learning environments, strengthen local networks that increase school safety, and enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Education and social protection actors to prevent, respond to, and monitor school-based violence. The project focuses on eight target municipalities: Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Choloma, La Ceiba, Comayagua, Puerto Cortés, El Progreso, and Tela. These municipalities are central to the 2020-2021 USAID/Honduras Country Development Cooperation Strategy under Development Objective 1 (DO1): Socio-economic Opportunities Improved to Reduce Irregular Migration and Development Objective 3 (DO3): Justice and Security Improved to Reduce Irregular Migration. The project also contributes to the second objective of the GOH 2010 Visión del País (Country Vision), promoting "strong systems of social protection," by supporting a commitment to democracy, security, and non-violence. Asegurando began the quarter advancing the 90-Day Plan to Curb Irregular Migration by expanding planned activities designed to keep young people engaged in school, learning, and progressing toward graduation and a future in Honduras. The plan involved enhancing activities that would have an immediate impact on improving enrollment and retention in the five original cities of operation and expanding key retention activities in 50 additional schools in three new municipalities. Of the eight cities in which Asegurando operated this quarter, seven ranked among the top ten. The project also implemented activities in response to the COVID-19 crisis and Tropical Storms Eta & Iota. The project's four strategic objectives are to: (1) improve schools' ability to reduce school-based violence and out-migration through the creation of safe learning environments; (2) strengthen local networks that increase school safety and curb migration; (3) increase the capacity of the Ministry of Education and social protection actors to prevent, respond to, report on, and monitor school-based violence; and (4) lower risk factors and enhance protective factors for students that qualify for secondary prevention services and are at risk of school drop-out and undocumented migration. Asegurando works in targeted schools, including primary schools and high schools across the eight target municipalities. The project strengthens education systems to address school-based violence, working to enhance the capacity of Government of Honduras institutions, such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Security, and other key social network actors at the national and municipal levels and among local civil society organizations. The project also supports a commitment to democracy, security, and non-violence, and responds to the Plan del País (Country Plan) by linking education and violence prevention through the promotion of greater cohesion.