Yuva Nestham Girls Empowerment Program

DESCRIPTION: The Yuva Nestham Youth Empowerment Program is a research-based initiative of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. Our community-based research strives to demonstrate that a suite of social, financial, and emotional empowerment interventions improves psychosocial wellbeing, school attendance and job skills of 1,550 10-16 year old girls and boys in rural south India.

In particular, the missions of the adolescent health component are to improve reproductive health knowledge and practices as well as provide adolescents with a safe and private space to get their questions about reproductive health answered by a trained professional.

In implementing a social and emotional learning curriculum, our goal is to improve emotional well-being, self-esteem and empowerment through life skill development delivered in a fun and engaging way.

Through our school-based income-generating activities, Yuva Nestham takes a sustainable approach to promoting economic empowerment through job skill development.

The Chronic Absenteeism Assessment Project within Yuva Nestham is a data-driven approach to tracking and learning the causes of student absenteeism toward improving attendance and reducing drop out.

OUTCOMES: Increase girls confidence and independence