Welcome to the Bridechilla podcast. I'm your host, Leah Hasledge. Whether you're just starting to plan or you're counting down the days, I'm here to

help you stay cool, calm, and collected throughout the wedding journey. So, let's get this

wedding party started and embrace your inner bride chila. Hey, Chilas, I'm excited today because we

are with Clay Don, who is the CEO of Vow for Girls, an amazing nonprofit organization

looking to help end child marriage. Clay, welcome to Bridechilla.

Thanks so much for having me.

For those of us that aren't familiar with Vow for Girls, which is an amazing organization,

give us a brief background about it and how you got involved.

Vow for Girls is an organization that champions girls around the world who don't have the rights, the resources, or the choices to decide their own futures.

And sadly, today, Leah, that is way too many girls.

12 million girls every year are impacted by this issue of child

marriage that we focus on. And that means that these are unions that girls are not choosing,

that someone is choosing for them, and that erase so many of the other choices that they have

for their lives. So when we talk about this, we're talking about girls who are under the age of 18,

largely living in rural areas, largely living in poverty,

and whose communities, who families don't believe that they're deserving of their own choices.

So Vow was founded in order to raise awareness and funds that can go into the hands of local leaders who are working directly with these girls and help them navigate futures that are free of child marriage.

What countries and communities are we primarily seeing this happening in?

Yeah, you know what? It's actually a really global issue. It happens across

countries and continents and religions. It happens here in the United States, though it has a much

reduced rate than what we see in other parts of the world. But as we see the largest concentration

of the problem, you see it most prevalent in, for instance, like sub-Saharan Africa or in India,

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