Cascading "Voices from Below" Youth Volunteers Program #EndingChildMarriages

"Growing our Own Leaders " MAYO Youth Advocacy volunteer Team for 2013. These young people have been doing amazing work in challenging injustice, negative cultural practices that undermines development, discrimination of women in issues that pertains their lives. EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES, TRANSFORMING LIVES is the MOTTO of the organisation. The VOICES FROM BELOW Project aimed at training Youth and Young Women Volunteers building a team of responsible young People in Mutoko and Murewa who will work to bring about a positive change in their communities. This year the organisation is also mainly focusing on eradicating early and forced marriages which has become a tragic faced by 15 million girls around the globe every year . Early and forced marriage is a violation of human rights that destroys girls' childhoods and women's lives. MAYO believes that education is crucial to reducing the incidence of early and forced marriage this means improving access to quality education for girls, and also educating the wider community to change of social and cultural norms that enable forced marriages to continue. Through the Youth volunteers program "Voices from Below" MAYO is raising awareness of girls rights at community level and also advocating for policies that promote and protects women . MAYO has also extended its Volunteers program by identifying girls who are in serious need of school fees to enable them to join others in school so far 10 underprivileged kids 2 from Mother of Peace, 3 Rukanda and 5 from Makosa have benefited uniforms, bicycles and school fees The Voices From Below Volunteers training provides a platform to collaborate with organisations providing humanitarian work, health facilities, orphanages, assisting the girl child and it is there to encourage young people to be volunteers, enhancing the the ability of youth to identify the problems faced in their communities and devise strategies to address the problems with the involvement of the community the first training trained 10 young women and 10 young men and the 2014 training trained 15 young women and 13 young men . This year the training is going to cater for 25 young women and 20 young men the number of young women will be increased considering that women are always left behind during community development programs therefore all MAYO programs are aimed at increasing the participation of Young women in community empowerment and development platforms. Initial training was fully supported by Young Voices Network and European Union. For more on MAYO work You can follow MAYO Zimbabwe on twitter: @MAYOZimbabwe Facebook Page: MAYO Zimbabwe , Instagram: mayozimbabwe You can also get in touch by Emailing: mayotrust@gmail.com or preciousnyandoromayo@gmail.com