Development Marketplace 2018: Papua New Guinea

Equal Playing Field | Adaptation and Scale Up of School Action Groups

Project Summary:

Informed by the significant issues around violence against women in Papua New Guinea, Equal Playing Field (EPF) implements an eight-week curriculum to primary school children in Port Moresby and Bougainville. The curriculum focuses on healthy relationships, respectful behaviors, and gender equality, and is implemented by 90 volunteer facilitators who have worked with more than 3,000 young people and 80 teachers in eight primary schools in Port Moresby and Bougainville. The project is slated to expand into the Solomon Islands.

Since an eight-week curriculum is unlikely to make lasting change for students, EPF is seeking to implement a "School Action Group" program. With a cohort of boys and girls who benefited from the eight-week program and having experienced significant change and motivation as a result of EPF, their enthusiasm can be captured and extended through participation in school action groups that support young people to continue activities related to gender equality and ending violence against women after the EPF program ends. 

Project Team:

Jacqui Joseph is co-founder and CEO of Equal Playing Field. Joseph’s community personality earned her the 2017 Commonwealth Young Pacific Person of the Year, an award that raises the profile of young people in the Commonwealth who are contributing towards developing a fairer, sustainable, peaceful, and prosperous future for the Commonwealth. She was also recognized in 2016 as part of a group of 20 extraordinary young leaders whose social ventures are transforming age-old challenges by the International Youth Foundation under the Laureate Global Fellowship program. Her work in the last five years contributed toward developing an effective model of working with young people in preventing gender-based violence and promoting gender equality. Joseph previously worked with the Asian Development Bank and her professional career extends to implementing community-level projects and mobilizing youth networks towards positive social change.

Lauren Siegmann is a funny and creative designer and evaluator. She loves working with people and helping them make their programs the best they can be. Lauren is adept at taking complex research and evaluation theory and practice, and communicating it in a way that is easily understandable for a variety of audiences. She thinks in depth about the selection and implementation of research methods, and the politics surrounding these choices.

Lauren has a broad experience conducting research and evaluation at the service level, working with program staff to improve data collection and inspiring them to be part of the evaluation process. She understands the importance of working with program beneficiaries to ensure their values are embedded into program design and evaluation, and to this end, she is involved in the development of creative methods that involve program beneficiaries in the conduct of evaluation. Lauren started her career as a social worker in domestic violence and reproductive health services where her work is centered on crisis response, counselling and advocacy. She learned at length about social equity issues, and gained an understanding of how institutions work, and their impact on workers and service users. Lauren’s international development years were centered on business development for HIV and reproductive health programs. She has experience consulting in gender-based violence and reproductive health and evaluation in developing country contexts. She currently works and lives in South Sudan.