Girls not brides

This afternoon we had a really challenging key note speech.  Princess Mabel Van Oranje gave a moving presentation ont the impact of child marriage.  We often think of our wedding day as the happiest day of your life, a moment to cherish and remember for ever, something exciting. Yet for around 14 million girls a year this is not the case.

Neither physically or emotionally ready to become wives and mothers, these girls are put at great risk of experiencing complications in pregnancy and childbirth, becoming infected with HIV/AIDS, as well as suffering from domestic violence. Child marriage impacts of 6 of the 8 Millennium Development Goals and prevents us collectively from reducing global poverty.

But we can all be agents of change, as Mabel reminded us all. We can all affect change. You have to believe the impossible is possible. This is a great message to remember when we think about our own social action, whether it be in our local community or on the global stage. When you hear the devastating impacts of child marriage and the numbr of girls affected you can feel overwhelmed and unable to act. But believing the impossible is possible puts you back on the path to be a change-maker.

We also have to work together. Individuals can affect change, yet the change that we can achieve if we collaborate can really be amplified. Mabel told us that if you want to make big change then you have to make big waves, and big waves are made of tiny droplets.  We also need leadership. Formal leadership is important; we need our politicians to champion getting ending child marriage built in as a target to the post-2015 agenda. But we also need informal leadership, the leadership that we can all rpovide on an issue as important as this.

And lastly patience. Change doesn't happen immediately.  But we have to keep raising awareness and challenging the status quo. Mabel believes we can end child marriage in a generation. How can we make that happen?

★ you can find out more about this issue at Girls Not Brides
★ Members of Girlguiding can use the programme materials for Together We Can to learn more about the Millennium Development Goals and to take action and/or the Voices Against Violence badge.
★ You can sign up to support WAGGGS' Stop The Violence campaign