Aimed at reducing early marriage of girls and teenage pregnancy, Udaan, a five-year project, was implemented in Rajasthan. The project was designed to address the alarming situation of early marriage of girls leading to early childbearing, dropping out from school and other detrimental consequences. It adopted a multi-sectoral approach to prevent teenage pregnancy, layering interventions beyond sexual health, to fundamentally change the way adolescent programmes operate and achieve results. The investment leveraged existing government platforms and programmes to focus on three inter-related components.
As an implementation partner, we combined three strategic solutions ranging beyond sexual health to deal with the issues of high secondary school dropouts, early marriage, and teenage childbearing. Our first strategy was comprehending the benefits of years of schooling on decisions related to marriage and pregnancy; mitigating financial barriers to girls’ secondary school education by leveraging the centrally sponsored pre-matric scholarship scheme. Our second strategy resulted in identification of schools as the safest place for both positive adolescent health programming outreach and outcomes. Government ownership led to adolescent health education being introduced for the first time ever across all government schools of Dholpur district, known for its impeding social and structural norms hampering a girl’s agency. Our third strategy prioritised expanding the contraceptive method mix and choices for young women.
Key Outcomes
29,800+ early marriages and 45,800+ teenage pregnancies prevented
- 52,000+ additional girls enrolled in schools
- 600,000+ female users introduced to new injectable contraceptive method.
- 52,650+ girls prevented from dropping out after Grade 8 by facilitating access to government pre-matric scholarships
