Community town hall meeting is one of the most effective platforms for fair and equal ground for addressing challenges at the grassroots. Where community members, stakeholders, the media and government representatives meet to identify common challenges and find lasting solutions. Keeping girls in school network across communities in Ethiopia and Nigeria for the first time brought together government officials, traditional and religious leaders, media and parents of girls who do not go to school to discuss the main challenges why the girls do not attend school.
This allowed traditional and religious leaders to speak on the importance of girls’ school enrolment, retention and completion; academicians also highlighting the overview of girl child education in their communities whilst the media amplified the voices of the community on their plight on girls’ education.
This community dialogue was attended by the community elders, religious leaders, education bureau head, school directors, parents whose female children are not in school, Ambo City Mayor, teachers, students, youth and women representatives. These categories of people are found to be instrumental in the drive towards the improvement in the situation of girls education in Ethiopia and indeed Africa at large.
The presentations looked at the overall modalities of the KGIS initiative and stressed factors that hinder girls’ school enrolment, retention and completion in the projects catchment areas.