Tipping Point Program Resources

Child Marriage Learning Briefs

Child Marriage Global Learning Summary

CARE's Tipping Point Initiative gathered adolescent girl activists, technical advisors from diverse fields, activists fighting for girls’ rights, government officials, and staff to discuss not just what the last decade has taught us but importantly where we want the girls’ rights field to evolve. This series of briefs discusses what interventions have demonstrated impact on child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) and girls’ rights. It establishes ways to center girls’ experiences and evidenced-based strategies to facilitate transformative change within the movements, donors and governments that seek to empower and expand the voices, choices, agency, and rights of adolescent girls.

Child Marriage & Advocacy Learning Brief

This brief discusses where advocacy gains are being made, why, and what role each of us has in promoting transformative policy that centers girls’ rights and lived experiences.

Child Marriage & Family Support Learning Brief

This brief discusses the need for working with family for their support can help faster norm change, speed up girls’ empowerment and delay marriage.

Child Marriage & Girls’ Leadership Learning Brief

Tipping Point presents here not just what the last decade has taught us but importantly, how to move forward and achieve where the girls’ rights field should be evolving. This brief discusses the need for focus on what girls want and what matter to them, how they wish to connect with others to achieve their vision, and where they would like to take action.

Child Marriage & Economic Empowerment Learning Brief

This brief discusses what has worked and the need for boosting economic empowerment and financial opportunities into girls’ rights programming across sectors.

Replication and Scale-up of the Learning Communities on the Move (LCOM) Model for Girl-led Activism and Norms Shifting

This learning brief details the lessons learned from the replication of the LCOM model in the Zinder region of Niger. Available in English, French, and Arabic.

Learning Communities on the Move (LCOM) Model Overview

The Learning Communities on the Move (LCOM) model for girl led activism to shift social and gender norms includes the tools necessary to implement the activities following the Minimum Standards alongside insights from CARE and EMpower’s experiences. This package of materials pulls together lessons, tips, and specific group sessions that can be adapted and used to find, train, monitor, support, and evaluate girl led programming. Available in English and French.

Learning Communities on the Move (LCOM): A model for girl-led activism and movement building – Mentors’ Training & Facilitation Package

This Mentor’s Training and Facilitation Package is designed to be practical and user-friendly for program planners, practitioners, trainers and mentors involved in girl-led programming and activism. The processes laid out in this document are a minimum standard for implementing the LCOM model. Available in English and French.

Learning Communities on the Move (LCOM): A model for girl-led activism and movement building – Girls’ Activist Package

This training and facilitation package can be used by programmers working with adolescent girls in education, food and nutrition, economic empowerment, CEFM (Child, Early and Forced Marriage), and humanitarian sectors. It can also be used by anyone conducting or designing a girl-led program, developing a proposal to work with girls or for those directly working with girls and require fresh ideas on how to create and sustain program activities. Available in English and French.

Technical Brief: Girl-Led Activism and Structured Allyship

This provides an overview of the way that Tipping Point cultivated girl-led activism and movement building and engaged allies to support those girls. This brief accompanies Tipping Point’s Boys and Parents Allyship Implementation Manual and the forthcoming Girls’ Activism Toolkit.

Technical Brief: Intergroup Dialogues for Gender and Socal Norms Change

This technical brief provides an overview of the way that Tipping Point facilitates inter-group dialogues by bringing together girls, boys and parents to share reflections in a way that links to the sessions each group is doing separately. This brief accompanies Tipping Point’s Inter-Group Dialogue implementation manual, which contains more detail on the facilitation of each activity.

Be The Change: Staff Transformation Technical Brief

To address social norms that devalue girls, the Tipping Point Initiative invested in a continuous and systematic staff transformation process as the first step towards the journey of norm change to increase program quality.

Risk Mitigation and Management for Girl-Led Programming

This brief shares learning on the additional risks girls may face when leading change in their communities and actions taken ensure their safety. It draws on learning from CARE’s girl-led activism model, developed in partnership with EMPower under the Tipping point Initiative and implemented in five countries across three regions.

Flattening Hierarchies between Program Partners in Nepal

Flattening hierarchies between program partners in Nepal. Practice on power sharing: CARE Nepal and WOREC Nepal working in an equitable partnership.

Social Norms Design Checklist

We created this checklist to support both program design and ongoing implementation of social norms-shifting interventions. Often programmers plan to challenge and shift harmful social norms but are not certain of where to begin and how to adapt their activities to include norms-shifting components, effectively moving beyond individual behavior change. Programs that do not understand how to shift harmful norms may inadvertently reinforce them, or simply be ineffective at challenging and shifting them. This checklist provides examples of questions to ask while designing activities, examples of how to fill in any gaps identified, and what norms-shifting interventions look like in action. The checklist should be used after the program identifies the harmful social norms that act as barriers to positive behaviors and outcomes and thus the context in which norms operate. Available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.

Social Norms Data Use Tool

While diagnosing and assessing the strength of social norms is becoming increasingly popular within formative research and baseline evaluations for a wide range of projects, it can be difficult to then use the data gathered to design programs that lead to social norms change. This tool helps program staff utilize the social norms data and findings to design interventions. Available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.

Tipping Point Phase 1 Program Summary

Phase 1 of Tipping Point (2013-2017) addresses child marriage through a dynamic process of innovation, insight, and influence through advocacy in Nepal and Bangladesh. In 16 sub-districts of Nepal and 90 villages of Bangladesh, the project works with adolescent girls and boys, parents, community and religious leaders, and nationally with networks of social activists, experts, and government agencies. These areas are both geographically and economically isolated from other regions. CARE expects this learning and innovation initiative to contribute to global understanding of the complex issues driving child marriage and strategies that can contribute to a “tipping point” of sustainable change to prevent child marriage and create viable alternative paths for adolescent girls.

Tipping Point Phase 2 Program Summary

CARE’s Tipping Point initiative focuses on addressing the root causes of child, early and forced marriage (CEFM), promoting the rights of adolescent girls through community-level programming and evidence generation in Nepal and Bangladesh. For Phase 2 (2017-2020), the Tipping Point initiative has utilized learnings from Phase 1 to develop and test a holistic and replicable implementation package.

Tipping Point Phase 3 Program Summary

Phase 3 is the culmination of six years of multi-level programming and advocacy to critically engage the discourse on CEFM. Tipping Point centers girls’ experiences and evidence-based strategies to facilitate transformative change. To do this, we work alongside and support movements that seek to expand the voices, choices agency and rights of adolescent girls. Tipping Point will also build on the growing body of evidence and programmatic experience from Phases 1 and 2 to influence positive change on girls’ rights and CEFM alongside donors, governments and our peers.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Girls’ Collectives

This Facilitator’s manual for Girls’ Collectives has been designed for adolescent girls in Nepal at the time of baseline.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Adolescent Girls’ Groups

This Facilitator’s Manual for Girls’ Collectives has been designed for adolescent girls aged 12 to under-16 in Bangladesh at the time of baseline. The core intervention package spans 18 months, consisting of 45 sessions in total, e.g., no more than one session a week and not overlapping with national holidays, school exams, and other context-related events. In addition to the sessions in this manual, the girls’ intervention package includes Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) sessions and a girls’ activist training.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Adolescent Boys’ Groups

This Facilitator’s Manual has been designed for adolescent boys aged 12 to under-16 in Nepal at the time of baseline. The core intervention package spans 18 months, consisting of 45 sessions in total, e.g., no more than one session a week and not overlapping with national holidays, school exams, and other context-related events. In addition to the sessions in this manual, select boy activists will undergo training to support the girls’ activist activities.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Mothers’ Groups

This Facilitator’s Manual has been designed for the mothers of adolescent girls and boys in Tipping Point groups. The mothers meet once per month over the 18-month intervention period. In addition to the sessions in this manual, select parent activists will undergo training to support the girls’ activist activities.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Fathers’ Groups

This Facilitator’s Manual has been designed for the fathers of adolescent girls and boys in Tipping Point groups. The fathers meet once per month over the 18-month intervention period. In addition to the sessions in this manual, select parent activists will undergo training to support the girls’ activist activities.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Intergroup Dialogues

This manual is meant to be used alongside the rest of the Tipping Point curriculum, which encourages reflection on sensitive issue prior to the dialogues, creating a safe space for open communication. Well-trained facilitators should be present during the dialogue and facilitators should ensure all participants have an opportunity to participate. Girl activists from the groups can be asked to lead the campaign planning in the later sessions, with support from the boys and parents activists and the facilitators.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Structured Allyship to Girl-led Activism

Tipping Point’s approach is rooted in challenging social expectations and repressive norms and promoting girl-driven movement building and activism. Research shows that major social change only occurs when those who have been excluded from power organize collectively in the form of social movements to challenge existing systems and their impact. Therefore, Tipping Point facilitates adolescent girl-led activism and allyship by parent and adolescent boys to help girls find and collectively step into spaces to reflect on and tackle inequality

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Religious Leaders

The Tipping Point Religious Leaders’ package is a set of interactive sessions and self-reflection exercises designed to help foster a process of change to dig deep into the Child Marriage practices and its consequences within the communities of Nepal and Bangladesh.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Intergroup Dialogues (French)

Ce manuel est destiné à être utilisé parallèlement au reste du programme d'études du Tipping Point, qui encourage la réflexion sur des questions sensibles avant les dialogues, créant ainsi un espace sûr pour une communication ouverte. Des animateurs bien formés doivent être présents pendant le dialogue et les animateurs doivent veiller à ce que tous les participants aient la possibilité de participer. On peut demander aux filles militantes des groupes de diriger la planification de la campagne lors des sessions ultérieures, avec le soutien des garçons et des parents militants et des animateurs.

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Structured Allyship to Girl-led Activism (French)

L'approche de Tipping Point est ancrée dans la remise en cause des attentes sociales et des normes répressives et dans la promotion de la construction de mouvements et de l'activisme des filles. Les recherches montrent qu'un changement social majeur ne se produit que lorsque ceux qui ont été exclus du pouvoir s'organisent collectivement sous la forme de mouvements sociaux pour contester les systèmes existants et leur impact. Par conséquent, le Point de basculement facilite l'activisme des adolescentes et l'alliance des parents et des adolescents pour aider les filles à trouver et à s'engager collectivement dans des espaces de réflexion et de lutte contre les inégalités

Tipping Point Facilitator’s Manual for Religious Leaders (French)

Le dossier "Tipping Point" destiné aux chefs religieux est un ensemble de sessions interactives et d'exercices d'auto-réflexion conçus pour favoriser un processus de changement afin d'approfondir les pratiques du mariage des enfants et ses conséquences au sein des communautés du Népal et du Bangladesh.

Tipping Point Phase 1 Strategy Brief

Tipping Point worked primarily with adolescents, but also the people around them. Bringing together adolescent girls was a key approach to empowerment programming. Activities challenging gender stereotypical roles of men and women were designed and implemented under three themes: visibility of girls in public spaces, men in domestic spaces, and public events.

Tipping Point Phase 2 Implementation Package Overview

For Phase 2 (2017-2020), the Tipping Point initiative has utilized learnings from Phase 1 to develop and test a holistic and replicable implementation package. Tipping Point’s approach uses synchronized engagement with different participant groups (e.g. girls, boys, parents, community leaders), around key programmatic topics, and creates public spaces for all community members to be part of the dialogue. Tipping Point’s approach is rooted in challenging social expectations and repressive norms and promoting girl-driven movement building and activism. These components are designed to help adolescent girls find and collectively step into spaces to reflect on and tackle inequality.

Evidence of priorities, nature and size of Bangladesh government and donors’ investment in girls’ priorities and SDG-5

CARE has conducted a study to analyze the evidence on girls' priorities and investments focusing on eliminating CEFM, including, but not limited to SDG-5. The research identified the nature and size of Bangladesh Government and donors’ investment in girls’ priorities and identified the gaps between girls’ priorities and these investments alongside specific recommendations to fill those gaps.

Bangladesh: Policy Brief on The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2017

Summary of findings of a study conducted to understand child-marriage related laws in South Asian countries and the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017 of Bangladesh that repealed the previous law and set the minimum age of marriage for women at 18 and at 21 for men. It highlights recommendations from experts and activists to strengthen the legal framework in Bangladesh.

Evaluating Advocacy for Policy Implementation: A pilot of two tools

From 2009 to 2016, CARE USA and the Aspen Planning and Evaluation Program (APEP) partnered to develop a set of tools for evaluating policy advocacy. This report highlights the learnings from our experience piloting two tools focused on CARE’s Gender and Empowerment advocacy in particular: a Gender Scorecard for U.S. Administration Officials, and a Quality of Discourse tool.

Laws on Child Marriage in South Asian Countries: Analysis

Child marriages continue to be the norm. As elsewhere in the world, the drivers of child marriage include deeply entrenched cultural norms and religious beliefs. Transformation demands change in mindsets of all people in society along with laws that incentivize positive practices and deters harmful practices. This study focused mainly on laws of South Asian countries.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Raksha Bandhan

The traditional ritual of a sister tying a thread around a brother’s wrist and asking him for protection is modified so brothers also tie a ribbon around their sisters’ wrist and both vow to practice gender equality and pursue their dreams. This initiative garnered public support for growing equality between sisters and brothers.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Girls Football

Girls’ football openly confronts the social norm that physical and public sports are only for boys and, more broadly, the norms that limit adolescent girls’ mobility and visibility in public spaces. The Tipping Point created an opportunity for girls to play in public spaces and in tournaments with the intention of drawing public attention and made a positive practice visible.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Tea Stall Conversations

The tea stall conversations were successful in reaching men and sparking conversations on gender norms, girls’ rights, and child, early, and forced marriage. The tea stall proved to be a comfortable space for men to grapple with new ideas and challenge each other about the role men can play in supporting women’s and girls’ rights.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Intergenerational Dialogues

Intergenerational dialogues created a space for adolescents to practice interpersonal and citizenship skills, and challenged the absence of youth voices in public and family spheres. Onlookers were surprised to see girls questioning community leaders and government representatives; yet, people were supportive of girls.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Amader Kotha

Adolescents use street drama and dialogue to challenge existing social norms and show positive alternatives. Amader Kotha has been successful in sparking conversations about topics that have otherwise been taboo. The playfulness of the performance made these conversations easier for people in the community to engage.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Street Drama

Girls and boys lead and perform street dramas to challenge social norms around dowry and early marriage, and to introduce the benefits of investing in girls. This initiative is making a difference by loosening some structures on girls’ mobility, socializing with boys, and being vocal about their rights and perspectives.

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Amra-o-Korchi

Amra-o-Korchi or ‘We are also doing’ challenged gendered social norms for girls and boys by promoting change toward equitable workloads in the home. This intervention made positive practices such as boys doing household more visible (cooking, doing laundry, and so on).

Tipping Point Innovation Brief: Cooking Competition

Boys participated in a cooking competition, and girls judged their food. This initiative highlighted changing norms on male participation in domestic tasks and the importance of more equitable practices at home for time efficiency and family harmony and gender equity.

Innovation Brief: Girl-Led Activism and Advocacy

Research shows that major social change only occurs when those who have been excluded from power organize collectively in the form of social movements to challenge existing systems and their impact. Therefore, Tipping Point facilitates adolescent girl-led activism and structured allyship by parents and adolescent boys as girls find and collectively step into spaces to reflect on and tackle inequality. Available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.

Tipping Point Story of Change: A Reflection on Choice

Shawpna Aktar is 15 years old and a member of a Tipping Point group at Kukraporshi fun center. Kokraporshi is a village of Jamalganj Upazila under Sachna Bazar Union. It has one government primary school. 80% of its children are school going, but issues related to sexuality and sexual health are not a subject of discussion in the schools. Suraiya Sultana, Project Officer at CARE Bangladesh, shares Shawnpa’s story.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Creating Positive Shifts

One Billion Rising (OBR) is a relatively new concept in Nepal, as in much of the world. Rupandehi district in Nepal chose to organize a solidarity rally and an interaction event in 2016. This is where Sashikala Yadav had been invited to speak: she was asked to share her experience of being an only child, to be the voice of her community members, and share out to her district the problems that exist in her village and community when it comes to child marriage.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Defying the Ideal

"The concept of an 'ideal' daughter is something that haunts us girls. An ideal daughter does not speak too much; she obeys her parents; she behaves appropriately. I grew up with this concept. For most of my life, I would do what I was told and never imagined doing the things I wanted to do. In keeping with this, my parents decided that it was time for me to get married when I was 22 years old. An obedient daughter, I did what I was told."

Tipping Point Story of Change: When Football Challenges Stereotypes

“Kicking the football for the first time felt really good!,” Pooja Yadav shares with much zeal. This is the first time she has played football in nineteen years of her life. A resident of Bairghat VDC in Rupandehi, Pooja’s parents had arranged for Pooja to wed just last year. In keeping with the social norms of her community, they had arranged for her to marry at such a young age ‐ this was not an uncommon phenomenon for her near and dear ones. CARE’s Tipping Point Project has been partnering with Siddhartha Samudayik Samaj (SSS) in Rupandehi to allow for positive shifts in social norms that contribute to adolescent empowerment.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Together We Stand

Shushila Yadav and Gongotri Yadav are sisters. They are bright, capable, and ambitious. Meeting young women like them in a small village like Maryadpur, which lies in Rupandehi district in Nepal, is not common. However with role models like them, this may soon be changing as many girls look up to them for inspiration. Twenty-year-old Shushila Yadav is currently pursuing her High School Degree in Education. She hopes to become a teacher someday so that she can educate the children in her village. She is confident and outspoken and easily bursts into youthful giggles. This is a stark contrast from how she was only four years ago, when she was set to be married at the young age of 16.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Speaking out for Change

In one of the communities where the Aba Mero Palo (Tipping Point) Project ran a discussion center, the center abruptly closed by community leaders because they became fearful of the influence the center was having on the adolescents. Although the center shut down, the adolescents who had participated in the center's programs believed that it had a positive influence on them. Sushila Yadav, one of these adolescent girls, decided to mobilize her peers to help reopen the center.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Becoming an Empowered Influencer

Anita Raidas is filled with an infectious energy and vigor. The 20‐year-old, who has seen her life transform for the better, not only hopes to improve her own life, but also the lives of those around her. Married at the young age of 16, Anita says that although she could not stop her own marriage, she will do everything she can to stop her brother and brother‐in‐law’s marriages.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Desire to Learn

In most places in the Kapilvastu district, like in much of Nepal, men make the decisions in the household. Brindamati Raidas's household is no different. Her brother, Kailash makes all the decisions. Kailash decided to discontinue Brindamati’s education after the fifth grade because he did not see how furthering her education would help her in the future when she could be using that time learning how to be a good wife instead. Now, after participating in the Aba Mero Palo (Tipping Point) Project, Brindamati is returning to school.

Tipping Point Story of Change: A Story of Positive Alternatives

Designing and conducting forum theater scripts that portray positive alternative futures for adolescents is one method of delivering key messages about topics such as the birth of a baby girl and a baby boy and gender discrimination, social stigma around sports, harms of child marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence, importance of education for girls and boys, benefits of delaying marriage, and challenging gender and social norms and caste discrimination. Both Bangladesh and Nepal teams also leveraged existing celebratory or meaningful days to organize public events with the adolescents and other actors in the community.

Tipping Point Story of Change: A Purohit’s Campaign against Child Marriage

Ramananda Dube serves as a Purohit1 for about 90 households in Harnampur, within the Ratanpur Village Development CommiƩee [VDC] of Kapilbastu district in the Terrai region of Nepal. When Dube first hears of a potential early marriage, he does not wait for an invitaƟon to speak with the girl’s parents. Ramananda visits his Yajaman’s [parishioner] courtyard immediately to discuss the serious consequences of early marriage on a daughter’s health and well‐being. To date, Dube’s home visit approach has been effective.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Shirin’s Story

This story was initially told to Suniti Neogy, Deputy Project Director, Tipping Point, by Shirin. The language has been translated and adapted.

Tipping Point Story of Change: Taslima’s Story

The Tipping Point project facilitates Fun Centers for adolescent girls in 90 villages throughout Bangladesh. Taslima's story highlights how these community spaces offer girls a supportive social network and an environment in which reflective discussions on important issues related to their health and well-being is encouraged.

Tipping Point Story of Change: A Story of Positive Deviance

This story highlights a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law duo challenging norms and inspiring others. This story was originally documented by Umesh Pokharel, former Advocacy and Communications Officer, Tipping Point, CARE Nepal.

Spotlight on Voices of Change from Young Women | Tipping Point 2023

Adapted from the Tipping Point Initiative, the publication highlights the actions of adolescent girls leading in shifting gender norms and increasing their individual agency – leading to a more inclusive society. This brief profiles the lived experiences of some of the Tipping Point Initiative participants as well as the transformational approach of the Tipping Point Initiative on shifting social norms.

Tipping Point