Perspectives on agency from adolescent girls in Lao Cai, Vietnam

For adolescent girls living in highly marginalized contexts, agency is part of an everyday struggle. Girls make decisions about their lives while navigating social structures, norms, and systems. Yet the agency of girls and young women living in marginalized contexts is often misunderstood, unrecognized, underdeveloped, and/or actively stifled. Adolescent girls may have their own definitions of agency making it vital that efforts to promote agency in marginalized contexts start with girls themselves. The current report is our effort to do just that, as we share the results of two years of participatory, collaborative, and action-oriented research conducted by members of the Learning and Action Alliance for Girls’ Agency (LAAGA) with ethnic minority girls living in the Muong Khuong District in the province of Lao Cai, Vietnam. We outline the context of Lao Cai, describe our girl-centered methodological approach, share what we have learned with girls in the region, and propose priorities and strategies to mobilize actors to transform systems with and for girls’ agency.