World Vision defines life skills as an integrated set of core competencies that children and adolescents need to have a productive and fulfilling life. They equip children from birth to 18 years of age to manage their thoughts, feelings and expressions in their daily life or difficult situations of poverty, crisis, conflict and marginalisation and to contribute to the wellbeing of their communities. Life skills are a core component of a child’s or adolescent’s development, and therefore must be a key focus for education programming. World Vision’s Education and Life Skills goal is to contribute to improved learning outcomes for children with equitable access to education opportunities. While basic literacy and numeracy are core competencies that must be attained for children and adolescents to lead productive and fulfilling lives, without the foundational, essential and applied life skills to complement them, the application of such knowledge for the wellbeing of both the child and their community will be hindered or misguided, at best.

This training toolkit, prepared by World Vision Afghanistan for training children on life skills, includes sections on self-protection, self-esteem and confidence building. By developing these skills children can strengthen their sense of identity; enhance self confidence; improve the capacity to express, share and learn; strengthen their ability to identify risks and to rely on people they trust; learn how to be responsible in protecting themselves and others, and increase career opportunities and improved family habits as they become the next generation of parents.

The Life Skills Manual for and with Afghan boys and girls’ has been tested with staff and children in the field.