61%
OF HIV POSITIVE MALAWIANS
ARE WOMEN AND GIRLS
Educate | Equip | Empower
7%
GIRLS COMPLETE
SECONDARY SCHOOL
50%
GIRLS MARRY BEFORE OR BY
THEIR 18TH BIRTHDAY
EQUIPPING WOMEN | EMPOWERING GIRLS
THE PURPOSE
The Equipping Women | Empowering Girls program equips leaders of girls’ groups in villages and schools with the skills to help girls and female youth become empowered, responsible, and productive young women.
HOW IT WORKS
Equipping Women | Empowering Girls is a 4-day/15-session course designed to train six key women leaders of girls and young women. The sessions provide information about topics affecting girls and young women, such as, gender issues, health, child-headed households, cultural practices, HIV and AIDS, education, gender rights, alcohol and drugs, stress management. They then provide a variety of methods to teach about the issues to their groups.
THE RESULT
The Equipping Women | Empowering Girls program provides teaching strategies equipping the instructors with accurate information and essential life skills with the goal to:
• Keep girls in school
• Prevent child, early, and forced marriages
• Prevent unplanned, unwanted, and early pregnancies
• Decrease child-headed households
• Reduce the cycle of poverty
• Reduce the virus, HIV, and the disease, AIDS
• Enhance self-esteem
• Develop confidence to make positive choices
• Learn coping skills to deal with life situations
”``My observation in Malawi, most people who have attended workshops on HIV issues are men or women. With MMI activities it empowers both — and now girls' empowerment— this good and welcomed.``
”``Believe you me the training was awesome and powerful; we learned a lot and I believe we gonna have a better world with educated girls in years to come if participants train girls from congregations.``