Hi Ini,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we hope that we can provide you with timely, accurate, useful, and directly applicable information about bringing change to your community to stop/reduce under-age marriage. First, kudos to you for wanting to take on an issue that confounds many communities and is still pervasive in many parts of the world; it's a tall order, but change is definitely possible even in the face of entrenched cultural values and great opposition from those who perpetuate this practice. That said, in its essence and practical applications the CTB will take you through the community change process by helping you work your way through its 46 Chapters towards providing you with practical, step-by-step guidance in community-building skills. Associated with our chapters are 16 Toolkits, which offer short outlines for key community-building tasks. By starting on our home page, you can access all 46 chapters and 16 toolkits: click on the "Learn A Skill" button at the top left corner and then either click on the "Table of Contents" for the chapters or click on "Toolkits" for, well the toolkits. I will say that the toolkits are a good place to start as they are a more concise presentation of the material in the chapters, but also contain examples, tools, and links to other parts of the CTB that can be put to immediate use (yay). Let me say Ini, that the answer to your question encompasses nearly the entirety of the CTB so to implement significant change requires a fairly comprehensive understanding of everything that it takes to bring change to a community, and eventually a country; it is a tall order, but it can be done, it has been done, and it will continue to be done, and you can do it too. I won't lie to you and tell you it's easy, but at least the CTB makes it more manageable by breaking the process down into bite-size portions if you're willing to put in the time, persistence, work, and effort it takes to make change happen.
Now, before you begin working your way through the CTB I want to turn your attention to a number of inspirational community stories from the CTB related to the issue you seek to address. If going through the CTB from start to finish appears to be somewhat of a daunting task for you Ini, please check out the community stories below as you can glean a lot of information about how other communities have addressed the significant issues they've faced. Each story has three sections: 1) Overview; 2) Summary of Taking Action; and 3) Impact/Results. Although I think the stories below are most relevant to your proposed initiative, you certainly should check out other stories if they resonate with you - frankly, they're all great.
Begin on our home page and click on the "Connect" button in the top center of the page. Click on "Community Stories", click on "View All" and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click on the number 4 button and then click on the first story: "Rehabilitation, Empowerment And Leverage of Defiled, Abused and Devastated Youths & Women (REAL DADY) - African Community Team Support, Mbale, Eastern Uganda, Africa.
Begin on our home page and click on the "Connect" button in the top center of the page. Click on "Community Stories", click on "View All" and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click on the number 9 button and then scroll down to the last story: "Community Health Initiative (Maharashtra) - Impact India Foundation – Maharashtra State, India."
Begin on our home page and click on the "Connect" button in the top center of the page. Click on "Community Stories", click on "View All" and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click on the number 6 button and then scroll down to the fifth story: "Empowering Girls Through Skills, Knowledge, and Leadership."
Begin on our home page and click on the "Connect" button in the top center of the page. Click on "Community Stories", click on "View All" and scroll down to the fifth story on this page: "Global Society for Youth Empowerment."
Last, after reading through those community stories to get a sense of what other communities have done to bring about change, there is one resource I want to call your attention to within the CTB that you'll come across as you work through the toolkits, but I think is a good place to start. Go to our home page and click on the "Learn A Skill" button at the top left of the page. Click on "Toolkits" and scroll down to Toolkit 4. "Developing a Framework or Model of Change." I think this toolkit in particular will give you an overview of what needs to be done to bring about change in your community, and then when you’re done you can check out the other toolkits. As I mentioned above, within each toolkit are a number of examples, one in particular within Toolkit 4 stands out: Example 10: "A framework for promoting gender equality in education in Kenya."
So Ini, in sum, bringing about community change takes knowledge and skills, plus time, resilience, patience persistence, fortitude, effort, and a lot of work. Thankfully, the CTB provides everything you need to reduce/stop under-age marriage in the form of knowledge and skills if you are willing to work through the toolkits. Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the other attributes necessary for community change, but having knowledge and skills is tantamount to overall success. I think starting with Toolkit 4, and then working your way through the remaining 15 along with reading the inspiring community stories will give you a solid start. With that, we wish you the best of success in your endeavors. Take care, be well, do good work.
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