Entrepreneurship As Child Marriage Prevention
When girls build real business and leadership skills, they gain economic leverage and social standing that directly influence when and whether they marry
Child marriage is, in part, driven by the fact parents struggle to see the potential in their daughters.
Giving young girls the skills to launch their own businesses or add value to their parents’ businesses, enables a major perspective shift. The challenge then becomes how you equip young girls to learn this pivotal skillset.
A Structured System. Not a Workshop.
Mai Soli’s Girls Empowerment Program combines four integrated skill areas into a structured curriculum delivered through small cohorts, each led by a trained Fellow who mentors 10–15 girls over the course of the program.
Financial Literacy
Girls learn personal finance, budgeting, and savings, which fills a gap that keeps millions of young women economically dependent.
Business Skills
Participants design and launch real ventures, building hard skills in operations and income generation that families can see firsthand.
Leadership
Structured practice in decision-making and public presentation transforms how girls carry themselves and how others perceive them.
Agency Building
Personal strength and self-direction develop through group experiences where girls apply their knowledge alongside peers in their communities.
From Invisible to Indispensable
In many communities, girls are seen as financial liabilities, as mouths to feed until they can be married off. Mai Soli’s model disrupts that assumption directly. When a girl manages a working business, speaks confidently in front of community leaders, and contributes income to her household, the calculation changes.
She is no longer invisible. She is indispensable. And the pressure to arrange an early marriage loses its economic logic.
Among girls who have completed our structured program, there have been no reported cases of child marriage.
Change Within Community Systems
Prevention that lasts cannot come from outside. Mai Soli works directly with families, local leaders, and teachers in Bangladesh, the people who influence marriage decisions, to build trust and shift perceptions from the inside.
This community-integrated approach means change is owned locally, not imposed externally. When families witness their daughters’ capability firsthand, the decision to keep them in school and out of early marriage becomes their own.
Support Structured Empowerment
Prevention that lasts cannot come from outside. Mai Soli works directly with families, local leaders, and teachers in Bangladesh — the people who influence marriage decisions — to build trust and shift perceptions from the inside.
This community-integrated approach means change is owned locally, not imposed externally. When families witness their daughters’ capability firsthand, the decision to keep them in school and out of early marriage becomes their own.