Girls’ Education South Sudan 2 (GESS2) is an inclusive programme that will transform the lives of a generation of children in South Sudan through education. The five years program is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) with MOTT MacDonald as the lead agent. Girls’ Education South Sudan is being implemented in Lakes and Unity States and Windle Trust International is the State Anchor. GESS is implemented in 15 counties in total, including seven counties and Ruweng Administrative Area in Unity State, and 8 counties in Lakes State.
GESS2 operates on 5 core outputs:
Behaviour Change Communication (BCC)
This output aims at creating an enabling social-cultural environment to support girls’ education through social communication and through radio and communication outreach. In Behaviour Change Communication, we target the households through Family Listening Groups. Radios bearing recorded messages in the local languages are given to households on a rotational basis for 5 days each before it is passed on to the next household.
Cash Transfers
Given the dire conditions of families in South Sudan, most families live below the poverty line. This has led to a huge number of children out of school, with girls being given almost no opportunity for education. Girls Education South Sudan gives support to girls who have enrolled and regularly attendi classes through Cash Transfers. Direct payments are made to girls who regularly attend school to help them to buy the things they need, and to contribute to poverty reduction in the family and the community. This program targets girls from Primary Five (P.5) to Senior Four (S.4).
Capitation Grants
Many families can hardly afford to enrol their children in school as they would rather use the money for other pressing needs based on family priorities. To promote education, Girls Education South Sudan provides reliable funding to schools in terms of capitation grants to remove registration fees for student and parents. This reduces the cost of education and encourages families to send their children to school.
Quality Education
GESS 2 offers practical support to teachers and education managers to improve the quality of education, decrease drop-out and repetition rates. This is done through training school stakeholders, including head teachers, teachers, school supervisors, Parent Teacher Associations and Senior Management Committees.
