PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Sieverding, Maia AU - Bteddini, Dima AU - Mourtada, Rima AU - Ayoubi, Lama Al AU - Hassan, Ola AU - Ahmad, Aya AU - DeJong, Jocelyn AU - Abdulrahim, Sawsan TI - Design and Implementation of the Amenah Early Marriage Pilot Intervention Among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon AID - 10.9745/GHSP-D-21-00079 DP - 2022 Feb 28 TA - Global Health: Science and Practice PG - e2100079 VI - 10 IP - 1 4099 - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/10/1/e2100079.short 4100 - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/10/1/e2100079.full SO - GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT2022 Feb 28; 10 AB - Key FindingsThe attitudes of refugee adolescent girls toward education were overwhelmingly positive at baseline, such that no change was detected at endline.Girls’ positive expectations about their education contrasted with their views on marriage; as they grew older, girls increasingly adjusted their age at marriage expectations to the normative patterns in their community.There was considerable discordance between girls’ attitudes/ideals and the circumstances of their lives.The quality of peer relationships between girls was the only factor that predicted their attendance in the Amenah project.Key ImplicationsInterventions in displacement settings should involve refugees in the design and delivery of projects that serve their community.Project managers should invest in efforts to engage parents in displacement settings, particularly fathers, in interventions that focus on their children.Incorporating peer networks and “safe spaces” should be included as critical components of intervention projects with refugee adolescent girls.Ending early marriage among refugee adolescent girls cannot be achieved without mitigating structural constraints in displacement and enhancing children’s access to education.Implementing and evaluating interventions in humanitarian settings in low- and middle-income countries presents unique challenges that are little addressed in the implementation literature. We document the process of developing, implementing, and evaluating the Amenah pilot intervention that aimed to mitigate the drivers of early marriage in a Syrian refugee community in Lebanon. Adolescent girls’ vulnerability to early marriage increases following displacement due to poverty, insecurity, and school disruptions. We delineate how, as a local research team, we triangulated evidence from the international literature and formative community research to make informed decisions during the intervention’s design and implementation phases. The pilot was delivered to 203 Syrian refugee schoolgirls aged 11–14 years during the 2017–2018 academic year. It consisted of 16 structured, interactive sessions with girls and a set of facilitated meetings with the girls’ mothers, both of which were implemented by trained female community workers from the Syrian refugee community. Process evaluation results showed that sociodemographic factors predicted attendance among mothers, but relationships with peers in the intervention were the only significant predictor of attendance among girls. The primary outcomes of the pilot were attitudinal measures related to education and marriage. Attitudes toward education were highly positive at baseline and did not change over the course of the intervention. There were no significant changes in girls’ ideal age at marriage. Among girls aged 13 and older at endline, the mean self-reported expected age at marriage increased slightly from 20.2 to 20.8 years (P<.05). Our results also suggest that girls may adjust their expected age at marriage downward as they become older and if they drop out of school. We reflect in the discussion on some of the challenges encountered and lessons learned for the benefit of researchers intending to conduct community-based interventions in displacement settings.