Adolescent girls in Nepal face enormous social barriers to accessing education and
health services due to exclusionary socio-religious traditions and years of conflict.
The programme and study reported here address two issues that a national
assembly of in-school and out-of-school adolescent girls, who had completed a
basic life skills class, and, in the case of unschooled girls, an intensive literacy
course, identified as important to their well-being menstrual restrictions and
HIV awareness and prevention. Local non-governmental organizations developed
a peer education programme in three districts of Nepal that paired girls from
different castes and different educational levels. The programme sought to increase
peer educators’ (PE) leadership and collective efficacy for informing peers and
adults in their communities about the effects that these issues have on women and
girls. In total, 504 girls were selected and trained as PEs. They conducted targeted
discussion sessions with other girls and organised mass awareness events, reaching
20,000 people. Examination of the effects of participating in the programme on
key outcome measures showed that leadership self-efficacy, which was a central
theoretical construct for the programme, provided a strong predictor of both
increased HIV knowledge and of practicing fewer menstrual restrictions at
endline. The project demonstrated that girls from different caste and educational
backgrounds are able to work together to change individual behaviour and to
address socio-cultural norms that affect their lives and well-being within their
communities.