Using the Community Conversation Approach to Tackle Gender Inequalities: Learning brief

Adolescent girls in Kenya face a number of risks and vulnerabilities that can affect their health, education status, and general well-being. The Adolescent Girls Initiative-Kenya (AGI-K) is currently delivering multi-sectoral interventions, targeting violence prevention, education, health, and wealth creation to adolescent girls aged 11 to 15 in two marginalized areas of Kenya.

This learning brief is one of three, prepared during the implementation phase of the project, focusing on key areas of best practices and lessons learn. These briefs aim to share learning with specialists and civil society networks, and help inform future design and management of adolescent girls’ programmes in hard-to-reach, marginalized communities.

Community conversations are a socially transformative approach that galvanizes communities to address the underlying causes of underdevelopment and vulnerability. The approach provides a platform where a cross section of the community members including local administrators, religious leaders, parents, teachers, community health workers, young men and women, converge and reflect on the challenges faced by the girls. They further identify steps to take to resolve these challenges and draw action plans that will eventually lead to a change in attitude, values, beliefs and practices that impede adolescent girls from realizing their full potential or well-being.