Help Plan International produce and air 13 radio programmes to help end the practice of child marriage in Zambia.
Why we care: Southern African countries have some of the highest rates of child marriage across the world—not doing enough could mean a half a generation of girls will be lost to child marriage thereby perpetuating the circles of poverty in their communities.
How we’re solving this: Advocating at the sub-regional, national and community levels and launching a media campaign to raise awareness of the harms of child marriage.
Child marriage is a girls’ rights violation and one of the main barriers to girls completing their education. Almost 50 percent of girls in Zambia will be married as children, before they turn 18th years old. New and innovative approaches are required to accelerate social change to end this practice once and for all.
With the 18+ awareness campaign, Plan International will work at three different levels: sub-regionally, nationally and at the community level to help reduce the prevalence of child marriage. We will partner with groups such as Girl Not Brides and Women and Law in Southern Africa to oppose and act against child marriage at regional bodies and government ministries and in collaboration with service providers, civil society organizations, traditional leaders and boys and girls themselves. By working at all levels, including through strategic communication messaging, legislative frameworks, local governance structures and with girls themselves, Plan believes the practice of child marriage can be significantly reduced and eventually eliminated.
As part of 18+, Plan International will also launch a dedicated media campaign. The media campaign will promote messages on child marriages across television channels, radio stations and social media networks targeting community members, traditional leaders and policy makers to raise awareness of the harms of child marriages and create a supportive environment to its elimination.
This project will help produce 13 programmes to help publicize the outcomes of existing child law reviews to the public. Helping highlight these reviews will allow create awareness on child marriage and potentially support the reviews.
This project–as a part of the 18+ campaign–will help develop and strengthen mechanisms to ensure that children, especially girls, stay in school and finish their education. The 18+ campaign will help
- Provide scholarships to the vulnerable girls at risk of dropping out or who have dropped out,
- Equipping girls with sexual and reproductive health information and rights as a way of preventing early pregnancies,
- Strengthening girls and boys as agents of change by equipping them with life skills to help them advocate against and resist child marriages,
- Supporting girls clubs initiatives that help bring girls at risk of dropping out or have dropped out back to school,
- Organizing seminars for primary school teachers and parents as agents of socialization on gender sensitive approaches to socializing boys and boys,
- Support advocacy meetings targeting policy makers, and local influential leaders for the reduction and ultimate eradication of child marriages.
Your donation will help make help us make progress in our commitment to keep girls 232,600 girls across Southern Africa from child marriage.