Project Title

Change Starts at Home: Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls in Nepal

The Organisation

The project is being led by Equal Access, in partnership with with research partners from the University of Minnesota and Yale University.

Geographic Location

The project will be rolled out in three districts in Nepal: Chitwan, Nawalparasi and Kapilvastu.

Summary of the Intervention/Research

Change Starts at Home uses media (radio and SMS) and community mobilization to prevent IPV against women and girls in Nepal. Centred around an innovative radio and weekly listener group meetings, the intervention is addressing social norms, attitudes and behaviours that perpetuate women and girls’ low status in Nepal.

The impact of the project is being rigorously evaluated using a Randomised Control Trial to examine potential pathways of change and over the three years, Equal Access hopes to identify intervention activities that are effective, replicable and scalable so that a change in the status of women and girls can be sustained over time.

Whilst the project’s main objective is to give married couples the knowledge, skills and space to safely address power imbalances in their relationships, the impact is reinforced by activities that aim to bring couples and their family members and community leaders together in a movement to change social attitudes and practices towards girls and women in Nepal. In keeping with current best practices in social norms change, this intervention involves multiple, mutually reinforcing modalities including media and group discussions for couples and their families, and skill-building workshops and training for community leaders.

The project is the first of its kind in Nepal to take such a multi-pronged approach to working with couples, families and community leaders to drive a change in community attitudes towards violence against women and girls.

The project is also developing a first-of-its kind impact evaluation on violence against women and girls in Nepal. This research compares multi-component interventions against more traditional but less costly media campaigns to assess which interventions have more success in changing the way people think and act. This research will help to inform other policymakers and programmers globally.

Major Timeframes

The project will run over 3 years and end line results are expected in the second quarter of 2018

Related resources from the Evidence Hub

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Key Contacts

Binita Shrestha (in Nepal)

Email:  bshrestha@equalaccess.org

Gemma Ferguson (in UK)

Email:  gferguson@equalaccess.org

Website: www.equalaccess.org

Twitter: @changestartsww