Youth Skills Day: A roundup of what works & practical tools

Poverty and a lack of income-generating opportunities for girls and young women drive child marriage in many contexts. In almost every context, education is a protective factor against child marriage.

This Youth Skills Day, we focus on education and economic empowerment as paths to delayed marriage and greater autonomy for girls and adolescents today – so we can all shape a more peaceful tomorrow.

We hope you find these resources useful in your work to promote girls’ skills, connections and opportunities!

Photo: Girls Not Brides/Fran Afonso

Why focus on girls’ education & economic empowerment?

Through such interventions, girls – including girls who are, or have been, married – can acquire skills, confidence and connections outside the home, improving their mental health and expanding their aspirations and opportunities beyond marriage. Girls’ participation can also increase their autonomy and value in the household.

If individual-level interventions are coupled with community- and structural-level efforts to address social norms and improve girls’ and women’s economic security and independence, the effect can be transformative for us all.

3 resources sharing what works

Practical tools to support girls’ education

Practical tools to support girls’ economic empowerment

Practical Tools for Youth Activism:

  • Youth Activist Toolkit: This guide explains how to organise for change, discussing strategy, collective movement, and lasting impact.
  • Various Youth-Focused Resources: Includes guides, campaign tools, and case studies.
  • Handbook for Youth Activists: Addresses the common challenges youth activists face and offers solutions.
  • LAC Campaign (ESP): Guide focusing on a specific campaign but shares information on how to organise a campaign, find the key topic and identify key stakeholders.
  • Stand Up, Speak Out!: Youth activism training programme offers a series of workshops designed to mobilise young activists to take collective action to end child marriage. Co-created with youth and member organisations from across the world, it builds participants’ knowledge on child marriage and promotes youth-led community-building initiatives to address the issues that most impact them.

In the time it has taken to read this article 28 girls under the age of 18 have been married

Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18

That is 23 girls every minute

Nearly 1 every 2 seconds

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Knowledge is power: Youth-led research to address power dynamics in knowledge and advocacy processes to end child marriage and promote girls' education in West Africa

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CRANK Research Spotlight: Economic empowerment interventions to address child marriage

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We’re calling for expanded rights to free education to prevent child marriage!

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