As part of the "Together in education: Support for girls from rural areas" project, the Belgrade Open School held a training session on May 22 and 23 to improve inter-sectoral cooperation and prevent early school-leaving. The training entitled "Program for building capacities for cooperation between CSOs and schools" brought together 15 participants from six units of local governments - Leskovac, Velika Plana, Beograd, Tutin, Aleksinac, and Rekovac.

The training participants were representatives of civil society organizations that deal with topics such as social inclusion, rights and support for young people, gender equality, and employment, as well as representatives of primary and secondary schools from the mentioned municipalities. The first part of the training was devoted to analyzing the challenges that contribute to early leaving education, with a special focus on female students from rural areas. Participants were introduced to research results and analyses that point to multi-layered factors, from socioeconomic conditions, unavailability of educational resources, to gender-based obstacles that prevent girls from continuing their education. Through a facilitated discussion, possibilities for improving intersectoral cooperation were discussed, especially in the identification and mobilization of resources that civil society organizations can offer to schools and communities. Participants emphasized the importance of timely identification of risk factors and the importance of a partnership approach in providing support to schoolgirls through various forms of activities - psychosocial support, empowerment workshops, mentoring, cooperation with families, and local institutions.

The second day of the training was focused on practical work and the creation of specific local educational interventions that will contribute to the creation of a more inclusive and gender-sensitive educational environment. Through group work, the participants devised models of cooperation between CSOs and schools, which will be implemented in the field in the next phase. The focus of these interventions is the prevention of dropping out of education among female students, especially those from rural areas.

At the end of the training, steps were defined for further implementation and monitoring of educational interventions, as well as mechanisms for evaluating the achieved results. It is expected that these models will represent an example of good practice that can be applied in other local areas.

The project "Together in education: Support for female students from rural areas" is implemented by the Belgrade Open School within the regional project SMART Balkan - Civil society for a connected Western Balkans, which is implemented by the Center for the Promotion of Civil Society (CPCD), the Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM) and the Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM), and is financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway. The content of the project and this material exclusively belongs to the Belgrade Open School and does not necessarily represent the views of the Center for the Promotion of Civil Society, Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM), Institute for Democracy and Mediation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway.