How a $25 sheep can save a girl's life

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Issue Area: Women & Population

In the Amhara region of Ethiopia, a sheep can save a girl’s life.

Berhane Hewan, a Population Council and UN Population Fund (UNFPA) project to delay early marriage, provides a $25 sheep to families who commit to keeping their daughters in school and to delay marriage.

Amhara’s child marriage rates are among the highest in the world. Half of all Amharan girls are married before their 15th birthday. In 2005, in collaboration with the Nike Foundation, we provided $1.5 million in funding for the five-year Berhane Hewan project, which works with rural and urban partners to address the social isolation of adolescent unmarried and married girls.

For the project, community mentors taught the young girls literacy, life skills, health and HIV education, and how to save money. Participants also received support to stay in school through involvement in “girls’ groups,” which convened outside of school, and were urged to take part in community-wide conversations on early marriage and sexual and reproductive health issues affecting girls.

More than 750 girls from the community have joined.

Girls who participated in the program are more likely than other girls in their communities to remain in school, be unmarried and be better educated about sexual and reproductive health. It has also spawned a sister activity for married girls, who meet once a week to obtain health information, peer interaction and social support. Among married girls, girls living in the project site were nearly three times more likely to use family planning methods.

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