Hear Her Voice
In the midst of Covid-19, the need for accurate data to understand girls’ lives and needs has never been more true than it is now. As a local implementation of the Technology Girls Ambassadors of the Girl Effect, we are delighted to share Hear Her Voice – a digital diaries research project, giving 25 girls in five countries a platform to report on their experiences of life in lockdown, in their own words. We are excited that 5 of our TEGAs in Malawi are part of the study.
Hear Her Voice introductory Video
Over the last two months, Girl Effect has been listening to girls’ experiences, challenges and needs in response to Covid-19. Without the inclusion of girls’ perspectives, solutions designed to support them aren’t as effective as they could be. We’re sharing data and insights from this project to make sure organisations working with girls understand girls’ experiences of life in lockdown – both good and bad – so that they can design for their short- and long-term needs.
‘If corona doesn’t kill us, hunger will.’ – Jannat, 19, Bangladesh
‘We are in touch with friends and talk to each other through online chat, whatsapp calls or normal calls but still we feel the loneliness as there are many things which we want to share… which we are unable to.’ – Shiyona, 20, India
‘Since the outbreak, we have lost many things… The semester got disrupted. I do not know what things will be like. I do not see a future.’ – Merci, 24, Malawi
There is a risk that hard-won gains for girls slip backwards as a result of the pandemic, with a surge in gender-based violence, teen pregnancies and restricted freedoms. Yet there is a real lack of data and understanding about girls’ experiences of living through the pandemic. We rarely hear about girls’ lives from the perspective of girls themselves – especially those living in low- and middle-income countries.
Hear Her Voice is aiming to overcome this and bring girls’ voices into the conversation. Our digital researchers – Technology Enabled Girl Ambassadors (TEGAs) – in India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Malawi and the U.S. would in normal circumstances be out conducting qualitative interview research in their communities. Instead, they have turned the cameras on themselves to create weekly digital diaries answering co-created questions that are submitted via mobile phones through our bespoke TEGA app.
The Hear Her Voice site will be updated on a weekly basis with new video clips, articles, and films, telling the human-stories behind the headlines during this pandemic.
