She Tracker

PROBLEM:

Girl child school dropout due to financial constrains and society related influences like child marriage and low motivation.

SOLUTION:

Give SHE TRACKER to females in school and match it to the school computer  to monitor their presence and absence at school and intervene accordingly if registered absent for more than a week.

IMPACT:

• Identify school dropout causes and intervene accordingly for example in cases of child marriage, responsible authorities are alerted.
• It will connect marginalized females who cannot afford education yet innovative to organizations who offer a helping hand to educate the girl child.
• Career guidance and inspiration given to females by connecting females of different social class and those at different levels of education.
• Females will also be able to alert and seek help from concerned officials while encountered/encountering a troubling situation like Female Genital Mutilation practice and denial of education. 

Barriers that prevent girls and young women especially those living in conflict and emergency situations from reaching key learning milestones still remains a major problem in my country Uganda especially in the Northern part which still faces this challenge accounting for over 60% of the girls out of school.

This is related to the previous war that was encountered by the people occupying Northern Uganda and also because it accounts for over 40% area coverage that hosts refugees in Uganda. These impact an area negatively staring from low development which further affects community decision making in key aspects of life like education.

Girl child school dropout due to financial constrains and society related influences like child marriage, treasure of boy child education over the girl, lack of power to make assertive decisions that protect females from dropping out of school and low motivation are one of the major factors which need to be addressed and the SHE TRACKER is the way to go.

This is a tracking device designed in three forms i.e wrist watch, wrist band and school bag tag given to females on arrival at an education institution for enrollment, with a code matched to the school computer to monitor their presence and absence in school and intervene accordingly if registered absent for more than a week.

How it works:

• Monitor the presence/absence all the females in a given institution of learning and if registered more than a week absent, the person in charge will then follow up the missing student/pupil, find out why and intervene. 
• Register and connect organizations who would like to offer a helping hand to educate the girl child to females who cannot afford education yet innovative.
• Connect females of different social and education class  e.g a practicing female doctor to a secondary six student for career guidance and inspiration since some girls don’t reach greater heights in education because of societal imprinting.
• It can be used by the females to alert and seek help from concerned officials while encountered/encountering a troubling situations like Female Genital Mutilation practice and denial of education in exchange of raising finances to keep the boy child in school. 

Young girls and females in developing countries and specifically the majority poor like those in refugee camps, slams and hard to reach areas who account for over 69% of the annual school dropouts worldwide. 

A group of females from Barapwo Primary school and Amuca SDA school found in Lira District where interviewed on how they could be helped to keep in school during an outreach programme we conducted under our Women's club in the Public Health Association of Lira University and some of their responses were finding a way they can access scholarships and having the power to report distressing encounters like rape to authorities.

It's from this that we thought of this solution to help the girl child in rural areas.

The She Tracker will therefore ensure that the females in school needs are met like finances, inspiration, correcting myths and societal imprints and also giving them power to call for help in case they are faced with tough situations like rape and forced marriage.

Girl child school dropout rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is still high standing at 52 million girls annually due to financial constrains and society related influences like child marriage and low motivation  which disproportionately affects those especially in rural and emerging situations and it's therefore that the SHE TRACKER should be given to females in school by monitoring their presence and absence at school and intervene accordingly if registered absent for more than a week.