Marriage or high school?

Our first Girl Ambassador to visit Fiji talks marriage with teenagers.

This blog post from Franziska…

“When visiting Fiji, seeing and learning about the hardships that block them from ‘flying’ and achieving their aims, I found that many of the girls there don’t dare to dream.*

When doing focus groups at the schools or talking to (Coordinator Urmila’s daughter) Kajal at home, it always took time for the girls to open up and actually unfold their true dreams. The first time they may say ‘I want my family to be happy’ or ‘I want my family to have enough money’ and only after some probing do you learn ‘I want to go to school’ ‘I want to finish school’ ‘I want to be a doctor’ and ‘I want to go to university’.

Many of the girls only open their wings to reach at short- term goals such as having some money to get their family through the week or thinking about their current family situation, many don’t believe that there is anything else for them in the future than to get married and look after their family. Limited short-term goal vision means only reach short-term goals are reached.  With this mindset they cannot move beyond their constraints.

When asking one girl, she told me that she wants to become a doctor and so wants to go to university, but for this to happen she said could never get married, as she would have to give up her studies and career for marriage. Another girl explained how she was doing well in school and had her eyes set on becoming a nurse and studying at university. One day however she returned home to find that her parents had arranged a husband for her and that this would mean that she had to suspend her studies and future.

It really makes me value my ability to reach for the stars.”

Franziska X

Join us on the journey through Facebook, Twitter and our weekly blog. *Part of our Strategic Plan to 2015 is to hold ‘Dream Workshops’ with the girls we support helping them see a different future for themselves, then providing Vocational training to help them get there…