Tiyani Vavasati: Empowerment and Financial Education Intervention

This training manual was produced to guide a series of training sessions which were designed to empower young women. Part of a Sonke Gender Justice project implemented in South Africa, the four one-day long training sessions, are meant to:

• "empower young women to set goals for their lives;
• increase young women's knowledge of correct reproductive health and HIV information, as well as promote HIV testing;
• help young women learn to recognise and address gender-based violence;
• teach young women how to make sound financial decisions; and
• reinforce and promote attitudes and behaviours that will lead to a better quality of life for the young women."

Hosted over the course of a month, each training day consists of a morning classroom-based session where young women engage in both informative learning and interactive exercises, and then an afternoon session where they participate in a field trip. These morning sessions "are designed to be engaging, interactive, and make use of best practice young adult learning principles - that is games, small group work, etc., while focusing on pertinent topics to the lives of the young women." The afternoon sessions build on information learned in the morning and give the young women a chance to visit a local resource in the community, such as a clinic.
This manual is divided into four modules:

• Module 1: Introduction, Self-Esteem, and Goal Setting
• Module 2: Reproductive Health, HIV
• Module 3: Gender-Based Violence
• Module 4: Financial Education

According to Sonke Gender Justice, "young, rural, South African women are faced with many challenges that can impede a healthy transition from young person to adult. These include age-specific social pressures, lack of correct health knowledge, and lack of safe, economic opportunity." Tiyani Vavasati aims to intervene on some of these root issues, instilling useable assets into the young women. This manual was adapted, in part, from the 2013 Adolescent Girls Empowerment Program, Health and Life Skills and Financial Education Curricula published by Zambia YMCA, UKAID, and Population Council. Additional materials come from Sonke Gender Justice, South Africa.