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FINAL Shinyanga Firelight Evaluation Report (Shared with Grantee FINAL REPORT PROJECT TITLE: Evaluation of the Firelight Foundation Initiative to End Child Marriage in Shinyanga Region, Tanzania SUBMITTED TO FIRELIGHT FOUNDATION BY THE AFRICHILD CENTRE November 2018 Disclaimer by Firelight: Firelight reviewed the report and removed sensitive statements that are confidential and any statements that cannot be validated. Furthermore, the views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the consultants and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions held by Firelight. 1 FOREWORD Firelight Foundation (FF) has since 2015 been working with twelve community based organizations (CBOs) to end child marriage in Shinyanga Region, Tanzania. Child marriage in Shinyanga was estimated to be 59 percent at the start of the Firelight Foundation Initiative. The problem of child marriage in Shinyanga was largely associated with negative social cultural norm practices and poverty. Child marriage negatively affects the health, development and participation of the girl child threatening the attainment of her life potentials and sustainable development goals (SDGs). Firelight Foundation has been engaged in strengthening the capacities of existing Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to effectively and efficiently prevent and respond to child marriage, sexual exploitation and abuse prevalent in communities. The CBOs have created awareness on child rights and the dangers of child marriage and pregnancies. Parents have been equipped with skills in good parenting and children acquired life-skills to protect themselves. Children who were victims of early marriage were rescued by the CBOs and sent back to school. Additionally, FF has networked CBOs with government child protection structures and supported them with grants to reach out to the communities to fight child marriage. The goal of these efforts was to enable children to “realize the fulfillment of their rights and potential within a safe, caring and protective environment”. FF commissioned AfriChild to conduct a process evaluation of the Initiative to assess and document implementation progress, achievements, challenges, and emerging unmet child protection needs that should be addressed in the next phase. AfriChild is delighted to present the evaluation findings in this report. AfriChild greatly appreciates the opportunity given to her to participate and contribute to Firelight Foundation’s program to end child marriage in Shinyanga. This evaluation constitutes a scientific review of FF’s activities, approaches, service delivery and their likely effects at community level. The evaluation was done following appropriate scientific processes, design, methods and ethics. The evaluation exercise involved participation of CBO staff and board members, local government staff, child protection teams, community members and children in and out of school. The evidence presented in this report can, therefore, be relied upon to guide strategic rethinking of program design and delivery approaches in the coming phase. The report provides evidence on all the evaluation questions. The findings are presented in a step by step logical manner enabling conclusions and action points to emerge. Significant progress was attained in many areas which Firelight Foundation and her partner CBOs engaged in. The capacity building of CBOs improved their organizational capacities to manage themselves and offer quality child protection services. Some improved their status from a CBO status to a non-governmental organizations with ability to obtain funding from other external donors and to serve in larger service catchment areas. These developments are attributable to the technical and financial support provided by FF. I take this opportunity to congratulate FF and her partners and particularly the lead partners who did the capacity building for the work well done!! 2 We recommend that all stakeholders should continue to address the problem of child marriage and eliminate it from Shinyanga. There is need to effectively address other determinants of child marriage such as poverty, the mind sets and economic reasoning driving child marriage. There is need to consolidate current achievements and scale up the program to more wards, villages, parents and schools. In particular, stakeholders should target other population groups including men and boys and out of school youths who were not effectively reached during the first phase of the Initiative. Additionally, Firelight should support CBOs to effectively document and share knowledge with each other in the next phase. At this juncture, I wish to acknowledge with thanks AfriChild research team; Professor Rosalind G.N. Lubanga who led the Shinyanga Evaluation Team and her companion Mr. Mathew Amollo, Manager- Research. Thank you for a job well done. It’s my hope that all stakeholders will find this report usable for planning and programming. We look forward for continued collaboration with Firelight Foundation and her partners in the future. Joyce Wanican - Executive Director, AfriChild. 3 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................................... 11 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ..................................................................................................... 12 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND TO THE EVALUATION ......................................................................... 17 1. 0 IntroDuction................................................................................................................................ 17 1. 1 BackgrounD on the FounDation anD Initiative .............................................................................. 17 1.2 About Shinyanga Region .............................................................................................................. 17 1.3 ChilD marriage in Shinyanga Region ............................................................................................. 18 1.4 Sustainable Development Goals anD ChilD Marriages ................................................................... 20 1.5 Policy anD legal environment for chilD protection in Tanzania ...................................................... 20 1.5.1 The Constitution of the UniteD Republic of Tanzania anD The Marriages Act ............................. 20 1.5.2 The ChilD Act, (2009, 2011) ....................................................................................................... 21 1.5.3 The Tanzania National EDucation Act 1978, anD ChilD Marriage ................................................ 21 1.5.4 The National Action Plan to EnD Violence against Women anD chilDren .................................... 22 1.6 Overall Purpose of the Progress Evaluation .................................................................................. 22 1.7 Evaluation objectives ................................................................................................................... 23 1.8 Evaluation Scope ......................................................................................................................... 23 1.9. Key concepts in the Initiative anD some Definitions ..................................................................... 24 1.10 Organization of the report ......................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER TWO: EVALUATION METHODOLOGY .................................................................................. 28 2.1 Evaluation Design......................................................................................................................... 28 2.2 Evaluation criteria........................................................................................................................ 28 2.3 Evaluation participants ................................................................................................................ 29 2.4 Sampling proceDures ................................................................................................................... 29 2.5 Data collection MethoDs .............................................................................................................. 31 2.6 Key evaluation Areas anD questions ............................................................................................. 32 2.7 Implementation strategy ............................................................................................................. 33 2.8 Ethical ConsiDerations ................................................................................................................. 34 2.9 Data management, analysis anD report writing ............................................................................ 34 2.10 Limitations ................................................................................................................................. 35 4 EVALUATION FINDINGS, INTERPRETATION AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................................... 36 CHAPTER THREE: THE FIRELIGHT FOUNDATION PROGRAM................................................................ 36 3.0 IntroDuction ................................................................................................................................ 36 3.1 Program goal anD objectives (core outcomes) ............................................................................
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