17/07/2025
"I Don’t Want to Marry Yet; I Want More."
The quiet rebellion of a village girl who dares to dream.
In the sun-drenched heart of Gadza village, Niger State, where the roads are rough, the schools are missing, and the future seems fixed, a young girl is whispering a different story.
Her name is Aisha.
She’s 14.
And unlike most girls her age, already married, some with children clinging to their wrappers; Aisha wants something different.
“I don’t want to marry yet,” she says softly. “I want more.”
In a place where dreaming is considered a luxury, Aisha dares to hold onto hers. She dreams of going to school, learning to read and write, travelling beyond the borders of her village, and returning one day, not as a wife or mother, but as a leader, a helper, a woman with power and purpose.
But for now, she carries water instead of books, and her classroom is the world around her.
That is, until hope showed up in the form of Beyond Mentors Community Care Initiative (BMCCI).
BMCCI, a non-profit dedicated to empowering underserved communities, recently launched its financial literacy and women empowerment programme in Gadza village. For a place like Gadza, where girls are fast-tracked into motherhood, and most women have never seen a savings booklet, this initiative is more than just education. It’s a lifeline.
Mothers, grandmothers, and young girls now sit side by side, learning how to budget, save, and build something of their own. In their eyes, you see both the pain of what was lost and the spark of what can still be gained.
For girls like Aisha, it’s a sign that dreams are not forbidden.
She watches the sessions with wonder, clutching her own hopes tightly. The women are talking about building small businesses. About money that doesn’t come from their husbands. About having choices. About being seen.
In Gadza, the odds are stacked against girls from the moment they are born. No schools, no health centres, no safe passage to adulthood. But with every woman BMCCI reaches, a crack is formed in the wall of limitation.
This is why we do what we do:
To strengthen community bonds.
To give women control over their finances and futures.
To help girls believe that there is life beyond early marriage.
Aisha still walks the same dusty paths, but now her footsteps echo with possibility. She may not have a classroom yet, but she has courage. She has hope. And most importantly, she now has a community that sees her.
Because when you empower a girl to dream, and give her the tools to pursue it, you don’t just change her life.
You change an entire village.
Machief Ayuba Mallo Khadijah Abdu Iya Maimoona Sheila
