Integrating adolescent livelihood activities within a reproductive health programme for urban slum dwellers in India

Although a wide variety of livelihood programs for adult women exist in India, they rarely include adolescent girls. Of those that do, few employ rigorous scientific methods to evaluate program impact. This brief describes a project conducted in slum areas of Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh. The Population Council, in collaboration with CARE-India, tested the feasibility and impact of adding four livelihoods and life-skill components to a reproductive health program for adolescent girls (both school-going and out-of-school) aged 14–19. Using a quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design that contrasted the experimental group with a comparison group of adolescents, the project investigated whether the intervention increased girls' physical mobility and contact with individuals outside the family; enhanced girls' skills development and sustained use of these skills; altered work aspirations of girls and encouraged more progressive gender-role norms; reduced gender differentials in time use; and increased girls' reproductive health knowledge.