For $3,394, you can provide an adolescent girl in Malawi with the opportunity to learn marketable skills, allowing her to become independent in the long-term. These funds will provide technical or vocational training, small grants to start businesses, and continued educational and entrepreneurial support to a girl over three years.
A teen girl in Malawi faces restrictions and limitations that place her at a disadvantage. Girls in Malawi spend 33-85% more time per day working at home and in unpaid markets compared to boys. Instead of going to school, making friends, and learning skills, many girls spend their time cooking, cleaning and caring for younger siblings. Girls cannot develop the skills they need to be independent, provide economic support to their families, and break the cycle of inter-generational poverty.
Girl Up's vocational training program provides older teen girls who have had to drop out of school - and therefore have little chance for employment -- the opportunity to learn skills such as tailoring, carpentry and cosmetology. When girls graduate, they are provided with their own toolkit of supplies. Out-of-school adolescent girls are among the most marginalized populations. However, with these new skills, adolescent girls can become leaders within their communities.
In developing countries, the challenges that girls face are magnified by poverty. Investing in girls is smart economics. Providing girls with leadership skills through employment opportunities and skill building and including them in community decisions boosts confidence, one of the major tools that sparks economic and social change. When girls are empowered as skilled community members, mothers and women, there is tremendous potential for significant and long term economic impact.
