One Girl. One Region. One Voice They Couldn't Silence.

In Balochistan, being born a girl is a crime.

Here, in the grip of outdated tribal customs, conservative religious traditions and a culture that has long decided girls belong at home; not in classrooms, not in offices, not in their own futures, most girls disappear quietly. Married off at twelve, thirteen, fourteen. No farewell. No choice. Just silence.

Awesha Ali Mengal, sixteen and a half, has made it her mission to break that silence.

She knows what it costs. Born in Zehri where school was forbidden for girls, she spent years watching that door stay shut. When drought swallowed their land and climate-driven displacement forced her family to flee to Khuzdar, her brother fought to open that door. She walked through it and never looked back.

But the door never fully closed behind her either. She carried with her the faces of every girl left on the other side.

One of them was Alia Baloch (real name changed), a bright, funny fourteen-year-old from her neighbourhood who loved mathematics and talked about becoming a teacher one day. Two weeks after Awesha last saw her laughing in the street, Alia was married off to a man twice her age through a tribal agreement her family could not refuse. She never returned to school. Awesha sat with that silence for a long time. “That could have been me.

In 2022 when Global CO-lab network met Awesha she was only 12-13 years old, with a simple but powerful dream to create change for her people.

In 2022, the Global CoLab Network in the USA awarded her the Teens Dream competition for her climate work, giving her something no one in her district ever had: financial support, mentorship and a global platform. Through CoLab’s Teen Dream Hubs, Awesha attended and later led online sessions for teens worldwide; on gender equality, girls’ rights, mental health, quality education, climate action and child protection. She has since led Hubs on Gender Equality, Climate Change, Mental Health, Quality Education and Peacebuilding; guiding new teen changemakers across the world. “They believed in me before I fully believed in myself,” she says.

That belief became YEAC; Youth Empowerment and Action for Change, founded in 2023. Her team visited schools, homes and community gatherings across Khuzdar, speaking in Balochi and Brahui-Balochi about girls’ right to education, protection from child marriage and gender-based violence, mental health and bodily autonomy, in the language communities truly understood.

Awesha believes it deeply, “girls’ retention in school not only reduces the risk of child marriage, but empowers girls to speak confidently and negotiate with their own families; to delay forced marriage, continue their education and choose their own futures”.

Then came the day they decided to walk into the District offices. The night before, Awesha could not sleep. She was sixteen. She had no lawyer, no politician, no powerful family name behind her; only her girls, their stories and the quiet, terrifying belief that someone in that building might actually listen.

They did.

Facing education officials, local administration and other authorities. Awesha and her team brought real facts, real consequences and real girls’ stories. They demanded quality education, STEM access, girl-safe school environments and strict enforcement of the Child Protection laws; environments that keep girls learning, not dropping out into early marriage or becoming victims of child abuse and gender-based violence.

Officials listened. In writing, they granted YEAC permission to work across schools on girls’ education, STEM, mental health, child rights, and climate action. Ten schools committed to supporting girls’ education and fulfilling STEM requirements. One tribal elder publicly renounced exchange marriage and pledged his full support for girls’ education in his community.

Awesha has only laid the first brick of a foundation that cannot be unbuilt. She hopes these written commitments become lived reality that every girl in Balochistan reaches adulthood on her own terms, educated, protected and free to choose.

“Laws exist,” she says. “Now they must live.”