Preparing for Adult Life: Skills a 12 Year Old Girl Can Use

1
Preparing for Adult Life Skills a 12 Year Old
Girl Can Use

• Sajeda Amin
• Population Council, New York

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How do 12 year old girls spend their time?

• They go to school
• They do paid or unpaid productive work
• They help around the house
• They look after younger brothers and sisters
• They play with friends and neighbors
• They still have some leisure time
• Source Ritchie, Lloyd and Grant, 2005 Mensch et
  al., 1999

3
What will they be doing in the next 5 years?

• Finish or drop out of school
• Enter the workforce
• Get Married
• Have Children
• Manage Households
• Prepare for their own and their childrens
  future
• Source National Academy of Sciences, Growing Up
  Global, 2005

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How can they best prepare for all these options?

• Learn to save
• Learn to manage
• Learn to anticipate the future
• Learn specific skills to negotiate
• Learn to be safe in all these decisions
• Learn to aspire
• Source Population Council, Adolescent
  Livelihoods Study, 1999 Debraj Ray Capacity to
  Aspire2004

5
Are they too young for livelihood skills?

• There are many existing examples from the lives
  of adolescents around the world to suggest that
  acquiring livelihood skills is a socially
  accepted, beneficial and endorsed reality.
• Here are two examples
• In Egypt, girls form gemayyas at their school or
  workplace as a way of saving. Often for as little
  as 50 piastras a week (contd)

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Examples, continued

• In Bangladesh, it is common for rural girls to
  rear chicken and ducks for others under
  share-caring arrangements. The yield is usually
  half the chicks or a kid goat for the rearer to
  keep.

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What Can Be Done Institutional Options

• Meena Bazaars at Schools
• Saving Schemes at Commercial Banks, Post-office
  Savings Banks and Schools
• Rural Savings Schemes operated by NGOs to include
  in- school and out- of- school girls (See
  examples form various Bangladeshi NGOs such as
  CMES and BRAC)
• Financial Literacy Training (See examples for US
  Teens)
• Sources Sebstad, 2004

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Conclusion

• Preparing for a productive adult life is a
  recognized reality for most 12 year olds
• There are many innovative and socially acceptable
  examples to build upon
• A focus on livelihoods helps to engage young
  girls constructively as they experience the
  changes of adolescents
• Developing livelihood skills at an early age is
  not simply a means to an end but an end in itself.