Building skills for life

We help marginalised young people to thrive in a changing world by building their ‘skills for life’: their ability to protect and look after themselves, make a living and make informed life choices.

Plan UK’s focus is on adolescents aged 10 to 18, and on girls in particular. There are 500 million adolescent girls in the developing world.

Adolescence is a time of key transitions, but too often these go wrong for girls: dropping out from school before reaching secondary level; or poor quality education; early or forced marriage; exposure to violence, abuse and HIV infection; early motherhood and high maternal mortality, danger of death in childbirth or health complications.

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Before and after: A snapshot of life in Bangladesh

Picture this: Living in a remote community in northern Bangladesh where 44% of the population earns less than a $1 per day. The literacy rate is low – 42% to be exact. 29% of students complete the fifth grade and only 7% of the children that make it to secondary school are girls.

Now imagine this: As a pregnant woman in that same community, you live too far away to seek adequate care during labour. Your newborn’s chance of survival is slim, but your life is at risk, too. If your baby survives childbirth, keeping it healthy is a challenge. If your child is born a girl, keeping her safe from child marriage is even more difficult. 90% of girls in this community marry before age 18.

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A Plumbing Course Changes Beatrice's Life

In 2011, Beatrice was just another statistic. As one of the 29 percent of young women affected by youth unemployment in Rwanda, her dream was not to have a white collar job in the city like many of her peers, but to become a skilled plumber.

“I am an orphan, my father died in 1999, and I remained with my Mother and 4 siblings. We barely survived by growing beans and cassava on a very small piece of land, and working for our neighbors to earn money for food. Neither I, nor my mother, could afford to pay school fees for my younger siblings,” she explains.


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