Initiating women empowerment and youth development through involvement in non-formal education in three selected parishes: An action research on poverty alleviation

Abstract

This article elaborates on an action research undertaken by three researchers from a business school of a leading university in the Philippines on the contribution of non-formal education programs in poverty alleviation, aimed to initiate women empowerment and youth development among selected women and youth in the parishes they belong to. Non-formal education programs such as home-based livelihood program, parenting for women, leadership, character building, values clarification, and priority setting for women and youth were administered as a way to reduce the selected parishioners’ vulnerabilities arising from poverty. Using outcome mapping as a project cycle management tool, changed behaviours, attitudes, and values were identified not as final indicators but as an indicator of progress in empowerment and development to which the non-formal education programs contribute.