Growing Up GREAT!

Before, I didn’t do anything like chores at home. I spent my time playing football with friends. …At the Growing Up GREAT! club, I learned about all the household chores [that have to be done]. What girls did, I also started to do. I believe that it is good for a boy to do chores. 12-year-old boy, Kinshasa, DRC

Overview

Under the Passages Project, Growing Up GREAT! was implemented in urban Kinshasa, DRC as a multi-level intervention for very young adolescents and the important people in their lives, applying an ecological perspective to provide information and address the social and gender norms that affect reproductive health and well-being.

Growing Up GREAT! adapts elements of two tested models—Gender Roles, Equality, and Transformation (The GREAT Project) from northern Uganda and GrowUp Smart from Rwanda—for an urban setting in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic the Congo (DRC).

Growing up GREAT! applies an ecological perspective to address spheres of influence—individual, family, school, community—that most affect early adolescent life experiences. The program consists of a toolkit of age-tailored, gender-transformative materials exploring reproductive health and well-being, gender-based violence, and gender equality.

The Passages Project evaluated the impact of Growing Up GREAT! as part of the Global Early Adolescent Study. The study used a quasi-experimental longitudinal design to compare changes in gender norms and reproductive health outcomes among cohorts of 1,000 in-school and 400 out-of-school VYAs ages 10 to 14 taking part in the Growing Up GREAT! intervention with matched non-intervention comparison groups.

Implementation Resources

Implementation Guide: Growing Up Great! Implementation Guide (English, French)

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Overview

Implementation Resources

Overview Resources

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4