GIRL MOVE
helping girls in mozambique complete school and plan for what’s next
In Mozambique, 65% of the population lives with less than $2.15 a day. 48% of adolescent girls get married before 18, and 40% have their first baby before turning 18. While 94% of girls enroll in primary school, more than 50% drop out by the fifth grade, only 11% continue to secondary school and just 1% go on to college.
Most girls in rural Mozambique lack role models who can inspire them to dream bigger and pursue paths different from traditional roles for women. The transition from secondary school to the next phase of their lives is a particularly delicate time in the girls’ lives, when many drop out before completing school or abandon dreams of higher education and a career.
Girl Move is an award winning NGO that has been providing mentoring and training for adolescent girls and young women by young women, through sisterhood circles in Mozambique, since 2013.
With BTG’s support, GM launched a new programme of sisterhood circles connecting girls in the last year of secondary school to female university students. In the first year (2023), the programme reached over 1,800 secondary school girls in the provinces of Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado, which have some of the highest early union, early pregnancy and female school drop-out rates in Mozambique. Over 200 university students have been trained as mentors and are conducting mentoring circles with the younger girls.
Leveraging GM’s extensive experience in mentoring, the sessions will focus on strengthening the girls’ motivations for completing secondary school, helping them plan for the next phase in their lives and building self-confidence and skills to help others in their communities.
The key goals of the programme are to increase completion of secondary school among the target girls, to increase the percentage of girls continuing to higher education and to inspire some of the girls to become themselves mentors to younger girls, continuing the virtuous circle in their communities.
Key numbers
Training young women studying at university to run sisterhood circles with secondary school girls, teaching essential life skills, through weekly meetings for six months
Reaching <1,800 secondary school girls in 2023, in the Mozambican provinces of Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado
GOALS
40% of secondary finalists in the circles define their next move as going to university or a technical/professional institute at the end of the program.
80% of the girls have defined a specific plan to accomplish their aspiration, at the end of the program.
50% complete the 12th grade with success (vs 11% national average).
20% of secondary finalists pursue higher studies the year after the program (vs 1% national average).
