One of the Girls’ Project goals is to have more girls graduate from middle school. To achieve that goal, we must first make sure that girls make the leap from 6th grade (primary school) to 7th grade (middle school). As part of our strategies to help girls make that leap, we have been talking to the families of the girls who were in the 6th grade and are now supposed to be enrolled in 7th grade in January 2021. These meetings are focused on trying to convince parents to keep girls in school, but also to see if there are any obstacles that would prevent girls from moving on to 7th grade. In December 2020, we talked with 18 families.

Each family had a different reason why they were considering removing their girls from school. One common issue is that families think that when a girl turns 15 she must be married. This belief makes it much more difficult to convince families to let their daughters continue in school, and perhaps into vocational training to get a job.