What does Casey Foundation Africa do?
At the Casey Foundation Africa, our goal is to make the world a better place for girls. This initiative has driven us to offer the services below:
Women Empowerment
We work closely with girls to provide them with the chance to learn new skills, comprehend and exercise their rights, and create support systems. By assisting girls in becoming change agents, assisting them in imagining alternate roles in their communities, and eventually assisting them in paving their own paths in life, we believe an empowerment approach can have a good impact on girls and their families.
Financial stability
In order to assist girls in providing for themselves and their families without being married, we work to promote and deliver economic empowerment programs like community-saving groups and support their entrepreneurship journey.
We believe that giving girls the chance to learn about money, run a business, and open and quickly access a bank account (without male supervision) can help them in their life journey.
Work with boys and men
In our awareness campaigns, we include men and boys since, in many communities, males are in charge and make the decisions. Our interventions also go at dads, brothers, spouses, and potential husbands in an effort to get them to think critically about the current quo and recognize the advantages of a society that encourages girls and women to reach their full potential.
Encouraging young people to act as change-makers
We collaborate with the youths to assist them in advocating for change and contribute to creating of programs that directly benefit them. We work with youth leaders, promote communication between youth and community leaders, and strengthen the skills of young people so they can lead the charge for change in their own areas and neighborhoods.
Traditional and religious authorities
We enlist the help of religious and traditional authorities to speak out against child marriage in order to alter societal perceptions, and we motivate and encourage them to do so.
Engage Communities and Families
Child marriage is viewed by many families and communities as a deeply ingrained custom that has been a part of their culture for many generations. Inequitable gender standards, such as the emphasis on preserving a girl’s (or her family’s) honor by suppressing her sexuality, are frequently the driving force behind the practice, regardless of whether it is attributed to culture or religion.
We think that for change to occur, the norms and attitudes that encourage child marriage must alter. To modify attitudes and lessen acceptance among individuals who choose to marry girls as youngsters, we collaborate with families and the larger community to promote awareness of the negative effects of child marriage.
Offer Services
We also take into account the structural and economic factors that contribute to child marriage in order to address it and meet the needs of married girls. Child marriage is far more likely to occur among the most disadvantaged girls, who lack access to decent healthcare, education, or child protection services. In order to prevent child marriage, we examine the services available to girls and consider how they might be made stronger.
Youth-friendly, high-quality healthcare
We encourage girls, married and single, to obtain excellent, youth-friendly healthcare services so they can live healthy, risk-free lifestyles for sexual and reproductive health care.
Registering weddings or marriages and births
We encourage the registration of births and weddings or marriages because we believe that documenting a girl’s and her partner’s ages can assist prevent child marriage and give women and girls the ability to seek financial and legal restitution in the event that their marriage fails.
Adequate child safety measures
We also aim to make child protection services available through various channels, including those in education, healthcare, community services, and law enforcement.
Our goal is to work in tandem with service providers to enhance their capacity so that incidents of child marriage and teen pregnancy in the neighborhood can be properly addressed.
Encouraging the creation and application of laws and policies
In order to avoid child and marriage and adolescent pregnancies and to support married women and girls, laws and regulations are crucial. Improved services, altered societal norms, and girls’ empowerment can all benefit from a sound legal and policy framework.
We collaborate with lawmakers and parliamentarians to encourage the adoption, strengthening, and application of legislation and policies that forbid underage pregnancy and child marriage.