Help fight child marriage - WHOLE Girl Fund

Every girl deserves to grow up in a world where her potential is realized, her voice is heard and her equality is not just a dream, but a reality.

Plan International USA is joining the U.N., other nonprofit organizations and businesses around the world to invest in women and accelerate progress toward gender equality. We’re asking: “What is the future we want for girls and young women?” And we’re investing in the women of tomorrow by supporting the girls of today.

Achieving gender equality and women’s well-being in all aspects of life is more crucial than ever if we want to create prosperous economies and a healthy planet.  Research shows that investing in the education and well-being of adolescent girls is not only a moral imperative, but is also economically critical, and leads to positive outcomes for society at large.

Today, we’re highlighting three times that investing in girls and women has paid off — and sharing some inspiring stories from our partnerships along the way!

1. Connecting young women to success in Guatemala

In Guatemala, Indigenous young women often don’t finish school, and end up working informal jobs that are both demanding and low paying. In many rural areas, it is particularly difficult for young people to find waged employment opportunities.

Plan’s Connection to Success project is improving young women’s economic prospects, so that they have the power to take their careers into their own hands through self-employment. Young entrepreneurs learn the skills they need to spot business opportunities, develop their business ideas, set-up and manage the risks of running a business, and face challenges with flexibility and creativity. They build their resilience with financial, business, entrepreneurial, digital and life skills.

Throughout the first phase of the project, which began in 2019 and ended in 2023, 2,085 young people (1,356 women and 729 men) completed virtual and face-to-face training in entrepreneurship to design their business plans. Now, the project has facilitated the creation of 455 individual and associative business units, mainly in the agricultural, livestock, trade and services sectors, which are supplying local and regional markets with competitive, high-quality products. These activities have helped to strengthen the local economy and business ecosystem.

By the end of the first phase of the project, hundreds of thousands of dollars of seed capital had been dispersed, supporting 568 young entrepreneurs as they started new businesses. In addition, 140 young people who completed the employment track got reliable, good-paying jobs in sales and customer service.

Young women entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed if they have trusted mentors, which is why Plan also facilitates business mentoring and links them to affordable and gender-inclusive financial services and professional networking opportunities.

“I feel happy for the space I have been given in the Connection to Success project,” Eliza, a 23-year-old participant, says. “My mom says she sees changes in my life. I tell her what I learned in the employment sessions. She tells me not to stop, to put everything into practice, and to keep growing.”

The final evaluation of the project’s first phase showed that the percentage of young people who have strengthened their entrepreneurial skills increased to 94%, compared to 13% at the beginning of the project.

Now, we’re getting ready for a second phase of the project. When designing additional programming, Plan staff incorporated the ideas of GirlEngage by organizing a consultation workshop with young people who participated in the first phase. Their feedback is informing plans for phase two.

2. Breaking new ground in Ghana

In Tamale, the capital of northern Ghana, passersby often stop to marvel at a crew of 10 tile layers trading quips at a local construction site. It’s not something they see every day. Why? Because six of the crew members are women.

This scene was made possible by Ayisha.

Ayisha, now 27, was in an arranged marriage and struggling to make ends meet when she heard a radio announcement about a job training program. After being interviewed at the program office the next morning, she decided to register on the spot to learn tile laying — a trade she knew nothing about.

“At first, I thought it was for males, females cannot do it,” Ayisha recalls. “Lifting tiles from here to there seemed like a huge thing. I was a bit afraid to learn it. I had never seen a female tiler before. My mother said how? I say, to try. If you don’t try, how will you know?”

In Ghana, young people often struggle to access education and training that aligns with job opportunities. To help young women build their own futures, Plan’s three-year project Pathways for Sustainable Employment for Women and Youth (PASEWAY) is reaching young people across northern Ghana with job training and business skills. Through PASEWAY, more than 4,200 young people like Ayisha have received technical and skills training in the construction and hospitality sectors.

After completing the training program, Ayisha now runs her own successful construction business. She has taught six young women and three young men how to lay tiles through her company. Ayisha says that passing on her skills and employing other young women is the most rewarding part of her job.

“I want people to know that as women, we can do something,” Ayisha says proudly.

3. Supporting young entrepreneurs in the Philippines

In the Philippines, Plan has partnered with the Western Union Foundation to support young women as they pursue decent work opportunities through a project called Youth Connect 2.0. The project builds on the success of Youth Connect 1.0, which reached 431 young people (233 women and 198 men) with technical and life skills trainings from 2020 to 2022.

Beginning in 2023 and ending this April, the project addresses gaps in training and decreased access to economic opportunities that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It aligns with the Western Union Foundation’s mission of creating economic opportunities for young people who migrate in pursuit of more prosperous futures. The project works in Cebu, Maguindanao and Western Samar, supporting training opportunities and providing access to community-based enterprises and employment in these areas.

With training and financial support from the project, Iris, 20, opened her own neighborhood grocery store.

“Ever since it opened and I started earning, I was able to help my parents with our daily expenses,” she says.