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Invest in a girl, and she will do the rest, but to do that, she needs your help now.”
The Girl Effect is “a movement driven by girl champions around the globe.” With an impressive list of partnerships like The Nike Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, this organization is effectively communicating the idea that if you lift a girl out of poverty, you lift the world out of poverty.
When a girl living in poverty turns 12, her life reaches a crossroads.
One path has her marrying – one in seven marry at the age of 14 in developing parts of the world – becoming pregnant by 15, possibly contracting HIV, and possibly forced to sell her body in order to survive.
The other path is much brighter – receive an education, stay healthy, marry when she chooses and raise a healthy family.
When a girl in the developing world goes to school for seven years of more, she, on average, marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. One quarter to one half of girls in developing countries have children before the age of 18: that's 14 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19. This is not to say that marriage or children are a negative impact on women, but that in those areas of the world, the maternal and infant mortality rates are much higher at such a young age.
An extra year of primary school boosts girls' wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school raises that amount even higher, to 15-25%. And yet, 25% of girls in developing countries are not in school. (An interesting note is that early marriage and pregnancy are not a cause of dropping out of school, but rather a consequence.)
In sub-Saharan Africa only 17% of girls are enrolled in secondary school. Why such a gender gap? One reason may be that girls are needed for household labor, while the boys can be spared. Another possible reason is that there are fewer secondary schools available, causing the children to travel further distances. Many families do not want to risk sending their girls on such a journey. Education also costs money; many families would rather invest in the boys than girls. After all, girls will only marry and have babies, so why educate them?
In fact, the opposite of that is true. If a girl receives education, she has a ripple effect on the entire community. According to a Girls Count Report on Adolescent Girls (by the Population Council), formal schooling during a girl's adolescence has a correlation with “delayed sexual initiation, later marriage and childbearing, lower rates of HIV/AIDS and other reproductive morbidities, fewer hours of domestic and/or labor market work, and greater gender equality.” By staying in school, girls prepare themselves for future social and health benefits for themselves and their families. Once they are out of school and have families of their own, they
“...practice safer health and hygiene practices, more time and resources for children's health and education, more exposure to information that can be used to support children in various ways, better child nutrition, the use of contraceptives leading to smaller family size, improved household incomes through greater labor force participation and earnings, greater bargaining power within the household, and greater ability to act on preferences for investment in children.”
The story of Shumi is a powerful example of the Girl Effect. This nineteen-year-old Bangladeshi girl says that families in her village rarely let a girl out of the house, because “people will talk about it.” Shumi denounces the status quo by declaring that she will not marry until she is ready. She opened her own shop with $37. It is very successful, and Shumi now is the leader of a local girl's center. She says that she would tell the girls of the world that whatever she does, even if it's small, she will see a brighter future. She would tell large corporations and individual people that if they would help a girl like her, they would affect the entire world. She would tell them,
“One girl can start the girl effect...”
Juthikar, also Bangladeshi, was considered a burden. She would have been married off at an early age in order to be written off the family balance sheet, but instead, through the support of Brac (
http://www.brac.net/), she purchased ducks, grows a vegetable garden, and tutors schoolboys. She makes $37 per month and is putting herself through school, along with her brothers. She supports her father and her mother.
Fifty million girls live in poverty throughout the world. Some of the world's worst social injustices are experienced by women alone. Maternal mortality, female genital mutilation/cutting, the worst forms of child labor, sexual violence, obstetric and traumatic fistula rates, low economic opportunity, and unaccompanied minors working as domestic workers. The incidence of human trafficking is also primarily girls.
TheGirlEffect.com is a website that brings together a large number of resources to promote gender equality in education, health, and overall existence. It and it's affiliates stress the importance and potential of girls all over the world. They only need to be given a chance.
To begin making a difference yourself, you can send a girl to school, give her a microloan, or help her with legal services. Go to
www.globalgiving.org/girleffect. Or, if you are in the US, you can text GIRL to 50555 to donate $10. Go to mGive.org/T for full terms and help on texting your donation.
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