Meet Blessing, 15, who has been forced to leave school and is afraid of being forced to marry after her father had to give up poaching in the nearby national park.
Blessing’s father used to go poaching in the nearby Gonarezhou National Park so he could pay her school fees. But now the rangers have increased security and he’s had to stop. “It means I can’t go to school anymore, because we don’t have the money. Now I’m afraid that I’ll be married off and never achieve my dream of becoming a ranger,” she says. Blessing is one of 100,000 children – a whole generation– in and around a national park in Zimbabwe and Mozambique are being educated through the Peace & Changemaker Generation project, as changemakers who can take a stand against wildlife crime, and for girl’s rights in their communities. The project is a partnership between the World’s Children’s Prize Foundation and Peace Parks Foundation.
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