2022 Dec 12
In a constantly changing environment, having life skills is an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life. To cope with increasing troubles, pace and change of modern life, students need new life skills. Today’s students will have many new jobs over the course of their lives, with associated pressures and the need for flexibility in which life skills will play a vital role.
Room to Read is one organisation that teaches life skills to girls in secondary education, through its Girls’ Education Program. Founded in 2000, Room to Read is a global non-profit organisation that creates a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality. It achieves this goal by helping children in historically low-income communities develop literacy skills and a habit of reading, and by supporting girls in secondary education with life skills and financial literacy, as they build skills to succeed in school and negotiate key life decisions. It collaborates with governments and other partner organisations to deliver positive outcomes for children at scale. So far, Room to Read has benefited more than 32 million children and has worked in 21 countries. In Sri Lanka, Room to Read began its work in 2005 and has reached 1.6 million children through quality education.
Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program ensures that girls complete secondary school, build life skills and learn financial literacy to succeed in school and make key life decisions. The program supports girls as they strengthen their power as positive change agents by providing life skills and financial literacy classes, mentorship and peer support and family and community engagement. Essential to the program are teachers and social mobilisers, who are women mentors, trained to work with girls and their families to ensure that girls stay in school, participate in life skills activities and learn financial literacy, and navigate the challenges of adolescence with the ability to make their own life choices, both personally and professionally.
Here are six key life skills that Room to Read has in its Girls’ Education Program to help adolescent girls find their agency.
Self-Confidence: Having self-confidence means understanding that one is valuable and believing that one is worthy of great success. When students are self-confident, they are able to make healthy decisions about school, strengthen their relationships and work through their problems with ease.
Expressing and Managing Emotions: Expressing your emotions means that you are able to share your own feelings with others. When you express your emotions, you are able to identify your feelings and understand how they impact your thoughts and behaviours. A student who can express and manage his/her emotions can process challenging and difficult experiences in a healthy way.
Critical Thinking: Using critical thinking skills helps you evaluate information and look at a problem from many points of view. Students who think critically will solve problems using logic, understand new subjects in school, cope more systematically with everyday problems and make healthy decisions about their lives. Thus, essay writing is important. It develops critical thinking, improves analytical skills and ensures effective communication. With the experience of buying essay help, students develop skills in formulating an idea, exploring different points of view, and making informed decisions about different aspects of their lives.
Decision-Making: Engaging in good decision-making skills helps students think carefully about all of the potential outcomes of a decision. Good decision-making leads to better outcomes and better quality of life.
Communication: Good communication means speaking and listening effectively with others. Effective communication between individuals improves relationships. Communicating and listening well helps students solve problems in a positive way, improve their friendships, and become successful at school and in their careers.
Financial literacy: Financial literacy helps students manage their everyday finances more effectively. Learning about the difference between wants and needs, savings and investment from an early age will help students have a better understanding of managing their personal finances, controlling spending and planning on how to save for the future. Knowledge about financial literacy also helps students navigate and venture into entrepreneurship.
At Room to Read, learning life skills and financial literacy help students to be self-aware, socially aware and understand self-efficacy so that students can make informed decisions about their education and life. Overall, life skills give students an opportunity to think about prioritising, goal setting and good behavioural practices for individual growth and learn traits such as leadership, empathy and effective communication for professional and social growth while becoming financially literate from a young age. These skills will certainly help students to go through both behavioral and attitudinal changes to become better citizens and create a healthier society.
