The Pacific Girl Inception Workshop was held from 21–25 October 2019 in Suva, Fiji. The week-long workshop comprised the following meetings:
- One-day Girls Pawa Toktok with adolescent girls from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu.
- Two-day Partners Meeting with selected civil society organisation partners from Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.
- The Pacific Girl Regional Learning Network meeting.
This document provides details about the Australian Government’s investment in supporting adolescent girls in the Pacific. It includes information about:
The review finds that there are very strong outcomes for Spa Academy scholarship graduates and their families.
Graduates feel more confident and valuable. Graduates have increased decision-making power in their families and communities and are considered more of a leader since graduating particularly at work as well as in their families and communities. Graduates have become more empowered and independent.
This factsheet identifies factors the factors that encourage and discourage boys from staying in school.
‘Push’ factors include: • Embarrassment of shame.
- Family issues.
- School punishment.
- Culture norms and practices.
- Peer pressure and personal issues.
- A desire by some boys to make money.
- Limited accessibility.
‘Pull’ factors include:
- Opportunities to participate in fun activities.
- Family support.
- Encouragement from friends.
- Positive teacher attitudes.
Findings from the study include:
- Girls in Kiribati lack knowledge about menstruation and reproductive health as they transition into adolescence and adulthood.
- Poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) contributes to girls being unable to manage their menstruation in Kiribati schools.
- It is often considered taboo for men and boys to talk about menstruation or interact with menstruating girls and women.
Findings from this study include:
- There is a knowledge gap amongst school-aged girls related to menstruation and reproductive health more generally. This lack of knowledge also extends to the school-aged boys and mothers.
- Some teachers interviewed indicated that they were unaware that Menstrual Hygiene Management is part of the curriculum.
- Traditional beliefs and practices related to menstruation are strong in Kiribati communities, in both the urban and rural settings. These traditional beliefs affect girls’ lives in a number of intersecting ways.
The Voter Education Project was targeted at the ‘lost generation’ of Bougainville (people aged 35 to 45 years). Over 20 months, the Bougainville Women’s Federation and International Women’s Development Agency provided education about voting rights and responsibilities to 22,463 women and female youth, including 206 with disabilities and 21,368 men and male youth, including 383 with disabilities and another 53 people with disabilities. These voters were able to use these skills in the 2017 Papua New Guinea national elections.
This trainer’s handbook sets out five half-day trainings in Family Business Management Training relevant to rural settings. The topics are:
- Exploring our household.
- Exploring how we work together.
- Managing money and coffee production.
•Decision making and household budgeting.
- Summary and planning for change.
It provides clear guidelines for trainers on activity objectives, key learning points and how to conduct each of the set daily activities.
Poverty data in Fiji is derived from household income and expenditure data, collected via periodic Household Income and Expenditure Surveys. Given gender inequality within households can be significant, assessing individual poverty by using household data and then assuming all household members have the same access to resources and opportunities is problematic. Household-level measurement also means accurate disaggregation of data is impossible. This makes the work of policy makers and advocates harder, masking differences rather than revealing them so they can be addressed.
Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:
- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.
Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:
- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.
Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:
- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.
Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:
- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.
Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:
- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.
This volume critically interrogates the relation between gender violence and human rights as Fiji, Papua New Guinea nad Vanuatu and their communities and citizens engage with, appropriate, modify and at times resist human rights principles and their implications for gender violence. It is grounded in extensive anthropological, historical and legal research.
Chapter titles are:
- Villages, Violence and Atonement in Fiji.
- ‘Lost in Translation’: Gender Violence, Human Rights and Women’s Capabilities in Fiji.
This monograph describes an approach to farmer learning and agricultural extension known as the ‘Family Teams’ approach used in a project to improve the uptake and impact of training and small business development for women smallholder food crop producers in three regions of Papua New Guinea. The Family Teams approach enables farming families to explore issues of gender and culture within families, seeking to encourage more effective, sustainable and gender-equitable farming and business practices.
The study unearthed a large amount of information about the delivery of adult literacy programs in rural communities, as well as finding some significant gaps in available information.
There is some incongruity between how adult literacy programs are typically described and perceived in Solomon Islands and the reality on the ground.
There is a wealth of knowledge amongst several key actors in the sector that could be harnessed more effectively to improve the delivery of adult literacy programs.
The Samoan study shows that violence against women is prevalent:
- 37.6% of women who have ever been in a relationship are likely to have experienced physical abuse by their partner.
- 18.6% of women are likely to have experienced emotional abuse by their partner.
- 19.6% of women are likely to have experienced sexual abuse by their partner.
- Of women have experienced physical abuse by their partner, 23.8% had been punched, kicked or beaten while they were pregnant.
Adolescent girls in the Pacific face challenges because they are girls; and they can also be discriminated against for other reasons, such as having a disability or getting pregnant. In this short video, adolescent girls from the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu talk about the issues that are important to them – such as education and climate change, the challenges they face – such as violence in their homes and cyber bullying, and the strategies they believe will work to empower adolescent girls in the region.
This research resource document provides guidance on how to best measure women’s and girls’ empowerment in impact evaluations, based on the experiences of J-PAL affiliated researchers around the world. This research resource document offers practical tips for measuring women’s and girls’ empowerment in impact evaluations. It is designed to support the work of monitoring and evaluation practitioners, researchers, and students.