Students Against Child Marriage (SACM) is the first student nonprofit nationwide devoted to ending child marriage in America. SACM has been working tirelessly to recruit a team of dedicated student activists. For the first time, the whole team got together to celebrate the launch of our Giving Tuesday campaign.
Giving Tuesday is a fundraising campaign that celebrates the season of giving. With the donations acquired through Giving Tuesday, SACM will work harder to bring the issue of child marriage to light by empowering survivors and ending legal loopholes in state legislation.
The Launch Party
On November 9, Sidonia Cannon, the head of SACM’s development team, hosted the Giving Tuesday Launch Party. A total of 31 members from all the chapters participated in our Zoom gathering.
To start, each university and high school chapter was introduced. We were then sent to breakout rooms to get to know each other better. The groups were split up so each breakout room had at least one representative from the National Team who led the icebreaker questions. We discussed why we joined SACM and how we discovered it.
Personally, I joined SACM because it is a topic that hits close to home as my cousins were married as teens, and I do not want any children to lose their childhood by being bound in an adult relationship.
Screenshot from the Giving Tuesday launch party, hosted by Director of Development, Sidonia Cannon.
Child Marriage Trivia
Back in the main room, Sidonia had prepared a Kahoot for us. The Kahoot was on statistics of child marriage in the USA and SACM’s plan on abolishing child marriage.
Through the Kahoot, everyone learned that there are 75,344 children trapped in marriages. However, that data is from 2015, and since no one has updated it, SACM plans on getting the latest statistics to see if the numbers have changed.
Additionally, SACM is currently working on the 10 State Strategic Plan that involves abolishing child marriage in these 10 states first and then moving onto the other states in the U.S.
Currently, there are only four states that have already eliminated child marriage. However, American territories such as US Virgin Island and American Samoa have also eliminated child marriage.
The Importance of Fundraising
Finally, Max took over as the host to discuss why fundraising is so important for SACM. SACM is led by students who are volunteering their time outside of school, so we need all the monetary support we can get. The money from our Giving Tuesday fundraiser can help SACM become bigger and more effective.
If you would like to get involved in the fight to end child marriage and participate in fun events like our launch party, you can join a chapter, start a chapter, join our national team, or donate.