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School ClubsSchool Clubs in Ethiopia

School clubs are established to enhance the regular curriculum delivery through engagement in co-curricular activities, i.e. putting the theoretical and classroom based education into practice. The aim of school clubs is to solve social, cultural and economic problems faced by students and the local community. Various kinds of school clubs are organized in primary and secondary schools that commonly include environmental club, girls/ gender club, mininmedia club, HIV/AIDS club, civic and ethics club, charity club, etc.

Girls/ Gender Club Environmental ClubsIn Ethiopia girls/ gender club has played an important role in mitigating school based and community based barriers to girls’ education. The major purpose of girls’ education is to empower girl students by exercising their leadership skills, and to enable them to communicate and to reflect on their issues and feelings. Roles of the club include;

• Assessing social, cultural, infrastructural, economic and leadership problems faced by girl students ,

• Liaising with school management including PTSA to solve issues that girls encounter such as violence, forced and arranged marriage especially by families

• Providing life skills training and counselling services to adolescent girls • Provision of sanitation kits and separate WASH facilities for girls• Encouraging media communication using school based communication platform

particularly school mini-media.

Environmental ClubsEnvironmental science is given as subject at early grades of the education (from grade 1 to 4 ). In the later grades it is integrated in subjects as social science, biology, chemistry, geography and civic education as subject matters. The club is key to coordinate environmental activities by adapting to the local context- assessing environmental challenges, identifying intervention mechanisms, translating theoretical understanding into actions in such a way that local environmental problems are mitigated. Major engagements include:

• Gardening and beautifying the school as part of creating child friendly school environment,

• Mobilizing the youth to monitor local level adaptation practices to build awareness of climate change through community outreach activities

• Developing compost materials that would be used in tree plantation and reforestation• Creating awareness to school members and the local community on the importance of

environmental conservation and the effects of climate change• Some schools use agricultural products of the schools produced by environmental

clubs for income generation.

UNICEF’s Contribution

UNICEF is supporting school clubs mainly environmental, girls/gender and mini media clubs. The support includes:

• Module development for environmental clubs• Training to club members in their areas of function• Material/equipment support (mass media materials, educational materials, hygiene kits

materials, agricultural tools…..)

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