FFLV USA

The Save Our Girls Project is an extension to our hugely successful education project which has been running for over decade. The project has a strong foundation and a good core structure. Over the years, however, we have lost several young girls from our school to child marriage. In an attempt to address this concern, we have embarked on this unique innovative solution. Each month $5 will be put aside for each girl in a special fund. The funds, which will be collected each year a girl is in schools, provide an incentive to both girls and their parents to keep the girls attending our school until the age of eighteen. The program works because it addresses two fundamental reasons for child ... read more The Save Our Girls Project is an extension to our hugely successful education project which has been running for over decade. The project has a strong foundation and a good core structure. Over the years, however, we have lost several young girls from our school to child marriage. In an attempt to address this concern, we have embarked on this unique innovative solution. Each month $5 will be put aside for each girl in a special fund. The funds, which will be collected each year a girl is in schools, provide an incentive to both girls and their parents to keep the girls attending our school until the age of eighteen. The program works because it addresses two fundamental reasons for child marriage - families' lack of capital for girls' dowries, or the 'bride price', and lack of education. Education has the ability to disrupt the patriachal traditions that promote the view of the role of women and girls is as caretakers of the household and children. By providing a new narrative about the potential of girls, our program changes parental and community attitudes about girls and women. As these attitudes begin to changes, girls find advocates in new places and in each other. For example, when a girl is doing well in secondary school, her mother is able to imagine for the first time a future for her child that is different than her own experience and persuade the rest of the family that she should continue to pursue her education so she can pursue that future. High achieving girls also serve as role models for other girls, inspiring them and their families the same way, creating ripples of change that go beyond the walls of our school eventually to become waves that change social norms around girls and women in Indian society at large.