Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA)

There are 400,000 out of school youth in Zambia, with most of these children falling into the category of orphans and vulnerable children, along with child labourers, rural girls or pregnant girls, and children with special educational needs. If Zambia is to attain Education for All (EFA) by 2015, effort needs to be doubled to promote access to vulnerable and marginalized children. This calls for a special advocacy campaign capable of reaching children from the above hard to reach categories. To do this, ZANEC is proposing to initiate a multi-sectoral approach involving the ministries of Education; Labour and Social Security; Agriculture and Fisheries; Community Development and Social Services; parliamentarians; traditional leaders; and parents in order to reach out to these children. Specific activities will include public forums/debates, road show campaign, television spot advertisements and presentation of advocacy papers to the Minister of Education. The main goal of the project is to reduce the number of out-of-school youth in basic education, and more specifically to increase enrollment by 5% by 2012. If successful, ZANEC will improve awareness among policy makers on the problem of out-of-school children and youth; and increase the demand for services for out-of-school youth by civil society, media and communities amongst others.