Amal Foundation, a local NGO, partnered with IPDC, are tackling child marriage issue at hand, said a press release.
Both partners collaborated to develop a unique project to prevent child marriage: the IPDC Child Marriage Prevention Loan, powered by Amal Foundation, launched as a pilot project in the Bogra District in March 2022.
The Child Marriage Prevention Loan (CMPL) is a conditional zero-interest microfinance loan that helps poor parents to start their sustainable businesses if they meet the following three criteria. To start, the loan applicants must be parents of a 12- to 18-year-old girl child. Secondly, the girl child cannot be married before the legal age. Lastly, the girl child must be educated until the end of high school.
Starting, these parents have a 30-day grace period. Then, Amal Foundation collects weekly loan instalments on behalf of IPDC and surveys the girl’s schooling and the business. These payments are then used to fund more loans for other interested parents.
IPDC and Amal Foundation hope to reduce discrimination through the CMPL by providing sustainable income sources to impoverished families in rural Bangladesh. This, in turn, will help transform these girls from being burdens into assets and help alleviate poverty.
