More than 700 million women today were married as children, and more than 1 in 3 – or some 250 million – were married before 15. An estimated 63 million girls are not enrolled in primary and secondary schools. However, if girls have the skills necessary for livelihoods, they can be a major source of supplementing the family income.
Distance learning is a flexible means of providing education and training to girls at their own pace, place and convenience, which is a preferred arrangement within many traditional communities. GIRLS Inspire mobilises the power of open and distance learning (ODL) in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Mozambique and Tanzania to benefit the women and girls who are prevented from attending schools by barriers such as early marriage, cultural norms and distance from schools. Our catalysing strategy is to use education within the whole community, with its traditions and practices, to support girls’ learning through secondary schooling and skills training.
The strategies used to break the cycle of child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) and to reach the hardest-to-reach girls and women are built on three pillars: the community, the learning institutions and the girls.
The partnership of GIRLS Inspire will provide learning across these three pillars to raise awareness and mobilise communities, to develop and provide life skills and locally relevant technical skills courses validated by the labour market, and to arrange employment awareness and internships programmes for girls and women.
GIRLS Inspire works to empower women and girls, so that girls can inspire positive change in the communities around them and around the world.
See our Theory of Change here.
Bringing learning to the doorsteps of girls and women in flood-prone areas
and to adolescents for economic empowerment.
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Learn MorePhoto credit: Abir Abdullah Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha
Raising awareness in Muzaffargarh and Bahawalpur communities
and delivering skills training to street children and disadvantaged women and girls.
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Learn MorePhoto credit: Mr. Khalid Mehmood, CSC Peshawar
Using mobile training centres and community radio programmes
to raise awareness and provide skills training to children of migrant labourers
and to girls and women who have had to drop out of school.
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Learn MorePhoto credit: Mann Deshi Foundation
Raising awareness in the communities with high prevalence of child, early and forced marriage
and providing schooling to girls and women in order to break the cycle.
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Learn MorePhoto credit: Associacao Progresso
Delivering schooling and skills training to women and girls
in the regions of Pwani, Lindi, Rukwa and Dodoma to prevent child, early and forced marriage.
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Learn morePhoto credit: Institute of Adult Education