Youth Centered Programming

A child marriage prevalence rate of 39% has given reason for My Age Zimbabwe Trust to implement the Girls Choose project that is aimed at raising awareness on early and forced marriages as well as creating an enabling environment for the elimination of child and forced marriages in Masvingo Province. Girls Choose targets youth aged between 13 and 24 years. The project empowers girls to influence policy makers and stakeholders in their constituencies to enact and enforce laws against child marriages. Girls Choose is in support of Target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Program to Accelerate Action to end child marriages, an initiative by UNICEF and UNFPA aimed at protecting millions of girls from child marriages. This came about after the realization that there is a plethora of challenges which befall girls once they are exposed to premature marriages. Young girls dropping out of school leads to perpetual poverty, vulnerability to gender based violence, increased maternal mortality rate and heightened HIV infection rates amongst girls.