Supportive sorority creates education and leadership opportunities for Mozambique's girls

Like her mentor Denise Amelia Matsule, now a medical doctor, the young woman is a member of the Girl MOVE women's support sorority.

Girl MOVE is an academy of women working to break the cycle of poverty and early pregnancies, thus creating new job and leadership opportunities. The Academy was one of

two laureates of the 2021 edition of the UNESCO Prize for Girls' and Women's Education.

"We are aware of the power that women have when we work together," says Alexandra Machado, who founded the Girl MOVE Academy in 2013 with Luís Amaral in Mozambique. "Girl MOVE strives to ensure that women and girls have equal access to education, opportunities to actively participate in society and can use their talents for the development of their country," she says.

In Mozambique, only 31% of girls manage to pass to secondary school and only 2% complete their school year to university. Child marriage and early and unwanted pregnancies are linked to poor educational performance: 48% of girls marry and 41.5% become pregnant before they turn 18.

The lack of female role models makes it difficult to break the cycle of poverty, something that often reduces women to the role of wives and young mothers.