Impact Circles: the innovative mentorship model changing futures in Mozambique

In Mozambique, nearly half of all girls are married before the age of 18, and teenage pregnancy rates are the highest in Southern and Eastern Africa. These challenges fuel school dropouts, limit girls’ opportunities, and help trap generations of families in “planned poverty”.

To break this cycle, Girls Not Brides member Girl MOVE Academy created Impact Circles, an intergenerational mentorship approach designed to both advance girls’ education and activate a new generation of changemaker leaders. Awarded with the 2021 UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education, Impact Circles is a cornerstone of Girl MOVE’s CHANGE — Leadership and Social Innovation Program, which provides young Mozambican women with the inspiration, knowledge, and skills to lead transformative change.

An innovative approach to mentorship

Impact Circles brings together girls aged 11–15, known as “Mwarusis” (“young girls” in the EMakua local dialect), from peri-urban communities and pairs them with inspiring female university students and young, graduated emerging female leaders from the Leadership and Social Innovation Program. These women, who are known as "Young Female Changemakers", go beyond mentors — they are role models and living breathing examples of what female leadership can look like, defying gendered expectations and showing that girls can become architects of change in their own communities.

In these intergenerational circles, Mwarusi mentees gain the confidence, knowledge, and agency to stay in school and transition successfully from primary to secondary education, a critical and high-risk stage in life for girls in situations of vulnerability. Their mentors, meanwhile, strengthen their own changemaking and leadership skills through the act of transforming others.

Grounded in girl-centred programme design and building on the Population Council’s “safe spaces” best practice guide, Impact Circles innovates and expands traditional mentorship. It creates a reciprocal, transformative learning space where both mentor and mentee bloom together.

Sessions take place in safe spaces where girls can speak freely, explore their dreams, and learn through engaging, hands-on methods. These include maths games for numeracy and financial literacy, and Sustainable Development Goals-focused challenges that inspire community action. Mentors also engage directly with mentees’ families through home visits and community meetings, building trust and reinforcing the value of girls’ education.

‘I will never give up on my dream’

The results are profound:

Lupita, a former mentee, captures the spirit of Impact Circles: “I learned that engineering is not just a man’s dream — it’s for everyone. I will never give up on my dream to attend university.”

The Young Female Changemakers (mentors) also experience transformation: 84 per cent secure employment aligned with their chosen impact careers within six months of completing the Leadership and Social Innovation Program. More importantly, they emerge as young female leaders and role models who continue to drive systemic change long after their formal leadership development programme and mentoring ends.

From this journey, Girl MOVE has witnessed that placing girls and women at the centre of programme design makes change more relevant and lasting. Exposure to positive female role models reshapes how girls, families, and communities imagine the future, and active engagement of parents and leaders ensures change takes root beyond the individual.

Sparking a powerful systemic movement

Girl MOVE is now scaling its vision. In 2023, it was commissioned by Mozambique’s Ministry of Education and Culture to co-develop a programme that would integrate Impact Circles’ proven mentorship model into schools across the country. The resulting School-Based Mentorship Programme for Girls and Boys launched in 2024 with a pilot across five schools in one district in central Mozambique and quickly proved a success. This spurred rapid expansion, with the programme widening to 30 additional schools across two districts in Sofala Province in 2025.

Momentum continues to build. The Ministry of Education and Culture is currently independently implementing the programme in three other provinces: Cabo Delgado, Nampula, and Zambézia. Fully integrated into the national education system, the model empowers lower secondary students to mentor upper primary students — both groups in critical transition years. This ensures that knowledge, confidence, and leadership skills are passed on between peers.

The initiative has the potential to reach more than 2 million students each year, challenging harmful norms and accelerating a cultural shift that recognises and celebrates girls as leaders, innovators, and changemakers.

In essence, Impact Circles has sparked a powerful systemic movement that nurtures courage, unlocks potential, and fuels a generation of girls and women ready to lead transformative change. This ultimately makes it a powerful force for advancing education and, as a result, ending child marriage and teenage pregnancy. Together, Impact Circles’ young changemakers are rewriting their own futures, while also shaping a Mozambique — and an Africa — where every girl can learn, lead, and thrive.