Social Franchising: It's Coming Together!

Last April, we announced the launch of a social franchise approach as part of our commitment to bring our comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) program to adolescents outside of the public school system. Through this model, we want to enable Malagasy civil society organizations (CSOs) to deliver our CSE program to their adolescent constituents.

Since then, we've been busy piloting this new approach!

Ando during a support visit to a partner CSO

July 2024 – Prospecting Partner CSOs

We launched our outreach efforts across five regions of Madagascar. Ando—our technical assistant for the social franchise pilot program and a former PJL Educator—navigated Madagascar’s rugged terrain to connect with potential partner organizations and their adolescent stakeholders. She used different approaches. In the city of Fianarantsoa, where PJL was founded, she organized an informational meeting with local CSOs to introduce our CSE program, share our values, and outline the goals of this pilot program. In regions where we do not yet work, such as Atsimo Andrefana and Androy, some CSOs had already expressed interest in our program. In these cases, Ando traveled to meet them in person, ensuring a direct and meaningful exchange.

Through these outreach efforts, Ando identified 30 CSOs as potential partners. Of those, 15 signed partnership agreements and joined our inaugural cohort! 

The partnership agreement outlines everyone’s roles and responsibilities. One key requirement for franchisees is to identify three team members: two staff members to deliver the CSE program and one to monitor its delivery, ensuring the program is implemented as intended. Due to limited human resources, four CSOs chose to have a PJL-hired Educator lead the program for the adolescents they serve. Since this is a pilot program, we decided to collaborate with these organizations, even though they don’t strictly fit within the social franchise partnership model.

Ando with the leaders of some of our partner CSOs

August 2024 – Curriculum adaptations

For the social franchise model to succeed, CSO partners need to deliver the core components of our program. These include stand-alone CSE classes for adolescents, following our scripted curricula.  

Nevertheless, small adjustments had to be made to align with the context in which our partner CSOs work, as well as the socio-cultural and logistical realities they face. For instance, our CSE curriculum is split into 4 parts: 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. Most CSOs partners work with adolescents of mixed ages; they can only be split into two broad groups: younger adolescents (10-14) and older adolescents (14+). Ando and our technical team therefore reorganized our CSE curriculum into two (vs. four) parts. They drew from our 6th and 7th grade curricula for the ‘younger adolescent’ curriculum, and from our 8th and 9th grade curricula for the ‘other adolescent’ one.

We also adapted our curriculum to account for differences in dialects. In the Atsimo-Andrefana region, we translated the materials into the Vezo dialect to ensure that the CSO’s educators and the adolescents they teach fully understand the content.

Ando presenting the PJL curriculum to the educators of our partner CSOs

Back to School (September 2024) – Training CSO partners

The staff members selected by each CSO to lead our program traveled to either Antsirabe or Fianarantsoa for a 8-day training with our team—a crucial step in equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to deliver our program effectively.

Similar to the training we provide to our educators and government teachers, the training covered topics such as the challenges faced by adolescents in Madagascar, PJL’s approach and values in sexuality education, classroom management, counseling techniques, and—most importantly—the content of the CSE curriculum. The training was highly interactive, incorporating teaching simulations and lively discussions.

We also worked with the staff of partner CSOs who are responsible for program oversight. We shared strategies for monitoring and evaluation, data reporting processes, and best practices for supporting and providing feedback to educators so that they can monitor the program’s delivery at their organization.

The response from participants was overwhelmingly positive. CSOs expressed their enthusiasm and confidence that this training will enable them to successfully implement our program within their organizations.

“I find this collaboration very interesting, because it can guide many young people along the right path. In our village, most young people don't have precise knowledge, particularly when it comes to the education they need during puberty.” – CSO partner representative.

Training sessions for educators in Fianarantsoa and Antsirabe

Today - Ongoing coaching and support

By November 2024, partner CSOs had begun delivering our comprehensive sexuality education program to 777 adolescents. 

“As an educator delivering the PJL program, I’ve noticed that the young people are very interested and motivated by the course. I’ve also already seen changes, both in them and in myself - as the one delivering it.” - CSO partner educator

Over the next 10 months, Ando will provide ongoing coaching and support to these partners to troubleshoot any challenges that may come up as they lead the program for the first time! She will be providing this support in three different ways: one-on-one calls with the educators, in-person visits to offer hands-on support, and group meetups for peer learning and exchanges (the first scheduled for April!).

As this is a pilot initiative, she is also collecting additional monitoring data to supplement organization’s reports.

My role in the social franchise goes beyond coordinating activities and training partners. I bridge innovative ideas with concrete action and plant the seeds for lasting, positive change. I’m always ready to connect—whether up close or from a distance—to strengthen the collaborations that empower local organizations to drive sustainable change in their communities."— Ando, our Technical Assistant working on this social franchise pilot program

Educator delivering the PJL program at her organization in Fianarantsoa.

We still have a lot to do to evaluate the viability of this social franchise approach, but we are encouraged by the positive response from this first cohort of partner CSOs. 

Exciting work lies ahead, and we’ll keep you updated—stay tuned!

The new CSE educators

A huge thank you to the Principality of Monaco, The Vitol Foundation and Spring Impact for supporting this exciting work!