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A $5 donation can transform a girl’s life through things like:

• A notebook for a girl in Ethiopia so she may go to school;
• A brick to transform a one room health clinic into a fully operating health center; or
• A billboard in Malawi that will ask for the end of child marriage.

Funds raised through Girl Up will fund United Nations programs proven to support the hardest-to-reach adolescent girls in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Liberia, and Malawi. These programs will help more girls become educated, healthy, safe, counted, and positioned to become the next generation of leaders, by:

• Increasing the investment in United Nations programs helping the hardest-to-reach adolescent girls around the globe,
• Providing additional resources to help more girls enter and stay in school,
• Assuring quality health services for girls,
• Ensuring life skills education in girl centers to keep them safe from violence, and
• Funding closer water wells to access clean drinking water.

You can support programs such as:
 
Child Marriage, Health Clinics, & Education — Malawi

Malawi, often called the “Warm Heart of Africa,” is located in Southern Africa tucked among Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. This beautiful country, however, has one of the worst records in the world in the areas of health and education, and a high level of poverty.  These issues tend to hit girls particularly hard.

The facts are striking:

• Less than 25% of girls finish elementary school.
• Nearly half of all girls are married by 18, and one in four teen girls already has a child.
• The HIV prevalence in Malawi is the 9th highest in the world and 45% of all new HIV infections are among young people. 
• Girls are three times more likely to be HIV- positive than boys.

Girl Up will work in Chikwawa and Mangochi, two districts in the southern region of Malawi. In our first year, Girl Up will directly impact at least 30,000 adolescent girls’ lives through UN and partner programs that  provide girls with education, health services and information, and opportunities to learn job skills and join girls-only clubs.

How Girl Up will Help Girls in Malawi:

Educating Girls

Many girls who would like to go or stay in school dropout because their families can’t afford to pay school fees. Girl Up will support:

• An education program that gives adolescent girls who missed out on school during their elementary years a second chance at education;
• School scholarships for orphans and other at-risk girls; and
• Science camps where girls can increase their skills in math and science

Ending Violence against Girls and Child Marriage:

Nearly half of all girls in Malawi are married by the age of 19. And violence against girls in schools — sometimes, by boys or teachers — is a problem that is well-known but many times not reported. Girl Up will support:

• A safe school campaign, as well as child protection and gender-based violence committees in schools; and
• A “Stop Child Marriage” campaign, which encourages young people, their families, and community leaders to get together to talk about how to prevent child marriage and the importance of empowering girls in their communities.

Accessing Health Information and Services:

When Girl Up visited Malawi, we toured  a health clinic in a district with 199,000 residents - 139,000 of them were under the age of 24. However, the space set up to handle youth health needs was barely larger than a closet.  Girl Up will support:

• Training health care workers to provide health information and services specifically for young people;
• Life-skills education programs for in- and out-of-school youth; and
• Expanding and revamping youth-friendly health spaces in the program districts.

Expanding Opportunities for Girls:

Girl Up will create opportunities for girls to participate and learn to become leaders in their communities:

• Job training programs for older teen girls. Training opportunities include skills like carpentry, tailoring and cosmetology – jobs that are in high demand in both cities and small villages; 
• Girls-only clubs, especially for girls ages 10-14, to learn skills and give girls visibility as a leadership group in their communities; and
• Mentorship opportunities for young women to “give back” to younger girls while at the same time develop their own leadership skills.

 

Berhane Hewan (Light for Eve) — Ethiopia

Sometimes the solutions to the biggest problems start with pen and paper. Think “The Declaration of Independence.” Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. E=mc2.

For the girls of the rural Amhara region of Ethiopia, pen and paper is a first step — the step that can become a leap beyond the unimaginable challenges they face:

• Education: Many families do not send girls to school because they cannot afford school supplies. Almost half of all girls aged 15-19 cannot read and have no prospects of earning an income.
• Marriage: Close to half of Amharan girls marry before their fifteenth birthday — often to older men they have never met.
• Childbirth: Amharan girls often get pregnant before their bodies are ready, and because doctors are scarce, many girls die or are disabled during childbirth.
• HIV: Ethiopian girls between the ages of 15 and 24 are three times more likely to be HIV positive than boys the same age.
• Genital mutation: Seventy-four percent of girls in Ethiopia have their genitals cut or otherwise mutilated as part of social and religious traditions.

But if a girl in Amhara has pen and paper, she can go to school. If she goes to school, she can learn to read. If she learns to read, she can get a good job in the future. If she has her own job and money, her family won’t have to marry her off to an older man she’s never met; she won’t have to contract HIV from him or die in childbirth.

With the support of you and Girl Up, Berhane Hewan creates safe places for girls to learn to read, take care of their own health and finances, socialize, and get comprehensive health education. And, yes, pick up pens, notebooks, and other school supplies so they can enter and stay in school. Girls who participate in the program are less likely to get married of at an early age and more likely to have the information they need to take control of their health.

Learn more about the UN Foundation and Girl Up's impact through the Berhane Hewan program.

View a slideshow from the UN Foundation's visits to Berhane Hewan and Biruh Tesfa! 

Biruh Tesfa (Bright Future) — Ethiopia

To escape the grim fate that many face in rural areas — early marriage and childbearing, HIV, isolation in the home — Ethiopian girls often escape to the Mercato slum of Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa.
But it is not much of an escape. They have no family there; they know little about life in the city; they lack even basic education.

Many end up working round the clock for little pay as domestic help. Others, looking for better hours and money, are forced into sex work.

You can reach out to these girls through Girl Up and the Biruh Tesfa program. We send mentors door-to-door, looking for girls who need help. At the Biruh Tesfa girls' clubs, a caring adult meets with the girls several times a week, depending on their work schedules.

They learn to read and write, gather important information to help them stay healthy, receive lessons in managing money and taking care of themselves, and just relax for a few precious hours with their friends.

Biruh Tesfa also keeps them real…really.

Girls participating in the program often lack official ID; the government doesn’t know they exist so they cannot access government services that are their right. Biruh Tesfa gets girls ID cards — cards that cost just $1 — and arranges annual health check-ups for them at health clinics.

Learn about one girl's journey with Biruh Tesfa.