Name Your Entry
For Girls Only: In The Cloud!
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Teenage pregnancy represents a main gender equity/public health/human development challenge in Costa Rica. Even though the country has recognized and acted on the urgency to prevent its occurrence, national data reflects stagnation for the last ten years at an average of 20% of births by women aged 19 years or younger. In looking into the action carried by the State to date, PANIAMOR identified a common focus on damage control (preventing school dropouts and providing prenatal health). None of the initiatives addressed the socio-economic factors making adolescent girls vulnerable to an early pregnancy as identified by national and international research.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
The initiative looks to expand the outreach of the For Girls Only (FGO) Model through the migration of its operational mechanism from community-based to a virtual platform to make it accessible to larger segments of the target population, with the added value of contributing to close the well-documented gender-based digital gap. It is based on the success documented by the original version of the Model, a capacity building intervention successfully engaging female adolescents, ages 13 to 18, from underserved communities, in transforming the main bio-psycho-social factors hindering their optimal development and increasing their vulnerability to an early pregnancy. FGO was developed by PANIAMOR Foundation, in partnership with the Humberto Pacheco Coto Foundation, between 2009-2011, and it is currently implemented at local governments in Costa Rica.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
Girls sign up as members to enter into a modular information/formation/action process, not linked to monetary compensations and designed from a human rights and gender-sensitive approach. They interact with mentors about a. women empowerment, life-sharing, responsible sexuality; b. self and mutual care, early pregnancy prevention, rights and citizen participation; c. life project, community agency and socio-financial education.
A network of successful women coaches the girls through the process.
Commitment with personal development, including prevention of early pregnancy, is FGO expected outcome.
FGO migration to a virtual setting will largely increase the Model’s outreach in a cost-effective way while creating a unique opportunity for PANIAMOR to further address in an innovative manner, the gender-based digital gap affecting the target group. The For Girls Only: In the Cloud roadmap features:
Reception: for registration and program information.
Conference & Resource Center: with outdoors auditorium for live streaming and video projection, thematic webinar sessions and interactive wall. PANIAMOR will partner to activate institutional stands giving access to services and opportunities.
Free-interaction area: containing booth displaying break-through technology, entertainment corner featuring youth cultural expressions and a wellness center with information on personal care and individual/asynchrony consultation services.
Sports area: linking online games programmed seasonally.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
As stated above, national initiatives addressing teen pregnancy in Costa Rica are focused on damage control or mitigation and work mainly with pregnant adolescents and teenage mothers. FGO involves vulnerable female adolescents at an earlier stage, when prevention of the problem is still possible if the population is empowered with the capabilities necessary to react to the factors underlying early pregnancy, in an informed and effective way. PANIAMOR perceives the national institutions with related mandates not as competitors but as future partners in bringing the FGO vision and strategy further in the framework of public policy and institutional programming.