Building adolescent self-efficacy, health and resilience: lessons from Nepal and Bangladesh

Adolescents ages 10-19 make up about one-quarter of the population of Nepal and of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. Girls in both settings are less likely to attend secondary school, more likely to marry and begin childbearing, and have suboptimal dietary diversity. In Nepal 27% of girls marry before age 19, while in CHT 54% of women aged 20-24 were married before age 18. As a consequence, young girls face narrowing access to information and life choices. To inform design of programs to counteract these trends, formative research was conducted with n=840 girls ages 10-19 via a survey panel in Nepal and with n=52 girls and n=52 boys ages 12-17 in CHT via focus group discussions exploring aspirations and their determinants. Despite their challenging circumstances, in both settings adolescents' educational and occupational aspirations are high. In Nepal 58.6% wish to study beyond grade 12 and 75% to pursue occupations requiring professional or higher formal education. Adolescents from all ethnicities in CHT wish to complete their education and be financially self-sufficient. They also aspire to be a good person, mother, member of society and respected. In Nepal girls on average wish to defer marriage until age 22 and childbearing to age 24, while in CHT they perceive early marriage to be linked to poverty and poor physical and mental health. Among Nepali youth, higher aspirations are positively associated with higher self-efficacy scores, especially among younger adolescents (ages 10-14), caste and wealth, and in CHT aspirations are more limited where parents do not support their children's education and career goals. Building on these findings, the USAID-funded Suaahara II project in Nepal targeted younger, in-school adolescents with an integrated package of materials for use by teachers and resource students covering nutrition and health, hand and menstrual hygiene, delaying marriage, continuing education, and building student self-confidence, self-efficacy, and leadership skills. They content was pre-tested and adjusted with feedback. Resource students set a goal of sharing themes with at least 5 peers, either in school, through specially designed sathi (friend) resource corners, or after school. Concepts were further reinforced through integration in the popular national radio program "Chatting with my best friend". In Bangladesh, the USAID-funded Sapling project developed a suite of strategies to build confidence and leadership skills in youth