Enhancing Level of Self Efficacy amongst Young Girls and Boys to Improve their Health Status

Background: About twenty percent of India's population, almost 232 million is in the adolescent age group. This age group is a huge resource for any country and society and is considered backbone for future development. However, these young people, especially girls, face complex challenges reflected in terms of poor education, health, employment status. The poor developmental indicators has created an imbalance in the society while assigning lower value in terms of poor nutrition, poor access to services and child marriage which is a critical human rights violation and it can be a 'sentence' to regular exposure to domestic or sexual violence, and a pathway to commercial exploitation. Over the years, though young population is in the school but quality of education and its impact on human development index is quite low especially amongst poor population. Aim of the study: To enhance level of self-efficacy amongst young girls and boys to improve their health status. Methods: A quasi-experimental mixed method i.e. Qualitative and Quantitative study was conducted in Government schools of Noida in Feb 2018- May 2018. The study was started with Baseline survey and after 2 months of experiment, i.e. various health awareness sessions and activities Endline survey was conducted. Data of both the surveys were analyzed and compared. To assess the change, this study bought among young girls and boys qualitative data were also collected i.e. Participatory Rural Appraisal, Focus Group Discussion and Case Studies. Results: Majority i.e., 51.65% of the students were more than 14years old whereas 48.35% students were of less than 13 years of age. 30% of students were males and 70% of students were females. Students who wanted to continue their education has improved from 96.9% in Baseline survey to 98.8% in Endline survey. While calculating self-efficacy index, huge difference was observed in thinking of children i.e. in Baseline survey 71.4% students admitted that it is easy for them to stick to their aims and accomplish their goals while in Endline survey this has been observed in 94.5% of students whereas 79.6% students were able to find solutions of the problems they face in Baseline survey which has been improved to 90.1% in Endline survey. On assessing gender attitudes, a huge difference was seen in attitude of students when asked that do girls should allow to decide about their own marriage, in baseline survey, 60% of students agreed to this statement but after the sessions in Endline survey, 74.7 % students agreed to this. In Baseline survey, only 1% of students were aware about their blood group, 0% about their anemia status, 1.1% about hemoglobin status and 83.7% aware about the places where they can go to avail health facilities whereas in Endline survey 5% of students were aware about their blood group, 2.1 % about their anemia status, 4.1% about hemoglobin status and 86.5% about the places they can visit to health facilities. Conclusion: The outcome of the study reflects enormous changes in student's attitude towards achieving their vision, their health status, towards gender discrimination, violence, communication and negotiation. Despite of this, students are still not able to deal with many problems due to certain barrier. More time and patience is needed to bring a positive change in each and every student.