World Vision: Educating Girls is the Cure for Poverty

10×10 is built on a foundation of partnerships with NGOs, corporations, policy makers, and grassroots organizations – all working to change minds, lives, and policy. 10×10′s coalition of NGO partners provide life-changing services to girls every day, and are among the best practitioners of their kind. They include: A New Day Cambodia, CARE USA, UN Foundation’s Girl Up, Partners in Health, Plan International USA, Pratham USA, Room to Read, and World Vision. We are proud to present our weekly Partner Series, where we highlight the wonderful work that they are doing on the ground.

There is a saying in Ghana: “If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.”

Here’s how the benefits stack up for a girl who is educated: her income potential increases, chances of maternal or infant mortality are reduced, her children are more likely to be immunized, and HIV infection rates (especially in Africa) are lowered. Those are dividends that spread to an entire community and nation.

But tragically, in our world today, being female often means being sentenced to a life of poverty, abuse, exploitation, and deprivation.

Compared to her male counterpart, a girl growing up in the developing world is more likely to die before her fifth birthday and less likely to go to school. She is less likely to receive adequate food or health care, less likely to receive economic opportunities, more likely to be forced to marry before the age of 16, and more likely to be the victim of sexual and domestic abuse.

In my opinion, the single-most significant thing that can be done to “cure” extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities—educationally, economically, and socially. This one thing can do more to address extreme poverty than food, shelter, health care, economic development, or increased foreign assistance.

In Bolivia, I met a young woman who beat the odds—Lorena, 25, a doctor serving in one of World Vision’s projects. She grew up poor, one of eight children in her family. But she became a sponsored child, and that, along with scholarships, helped her go all the way through medical school. “We want our daughters to be like Lorena,” say the women in this community.

Lorena told me that many of her brothers and sisters live with her. She’s helping support them as four are in university and three are in high school. Ultimately, all eight children will hold college degrees.

Wow, I thought. Then I asked, “What is it about your family that made education so important—for both the boys and the girls?” She said it was her father, quoting him: “I will not die a happy man until all of my children are educated.”

It takes courageous women and men to change perceptions of gender and equality in
societies. It takes us all seeing each other as God sees us—created in God’s image, each with a purpose and a role to play in God’s kingdom.

World Vision is excited to partner with 10×10 and share the need to bring hope and a future to girls around the world. Join us as we share more about our work and how we strive to overcome the barriers to girls as in our blog series starting on October 8th.

_________________________________________________________________________10x10 partner, World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. The organization serves close to 100 million people in nearly 100 countries around the world. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.

Circle of Women: Connecting the Dots to Change the World

Photography by Florian Koenigsberger

10×10 is built on a foundation of partnerships with NGOs, corporations, policy makers, and grassroots organizations – all working to change minds, lives, and policy. Circle of Women is a network of student activists at colleges across the United States that works to provide access to education for girls worldwide.

Yale University juniors Evie Freeman and Lauren Hoffman are nothing if not civically minded. Interested in empowering women since high school, the two of them set out searching for a cause to join as soon as they arrived on campus, a cause that would both capture their imaginations as well as satisfy their need to make the world a better place through policy-making.

“We really felt something was missing from our college experience,” Hoffman says. “So we set out to find an organization in which we could both harness our creative energies and leverage sound policy to meaningfully improve the lives of others.”

The organization they discovered was Circle of Women (CoW), a student-run non-profit
dedicated to improving access to education for girls. The only thing was … the organization didn’t yet exist at Yale. And – worse – in 2006 it was founded at arch-rival Harvard. Setting school rivalries aside, Freeman and Hoffman decided to create a CoW chapter of their own. Instead of starting an entirely new organization, they wanted to become part of the inspiring network of students across the world that is CoW.

Along with classmate Camille Chambers, who is taking a year off from Yale to model while
directing Yale CoW’s marketing and branding, they are working to launch a financial literacy campaign for secondary school girls in Latin America. This will be the Yale chapter’s first major project. With a 20-strong membership, the Yale chapter is hard at work researching how to – as Freeman and Hoffman call it – “connect the dots between a secondary school education and the microloans given to young female entrepreneurs” in their financial literacy campaign. The girls are planning on introducing the campaign during their 2013 spring break.

Spearheaded by the Yale chapter, CoW has joined 10×10 in spreading its message –that
educating girls in nations will change the world. Together, they will host a conference on
October 13 at Yale to celebrate International Day of the Girl. The daylong program will feature professors and practitioners in the women’s development community. Freeman, Hoffman, and Chambers spoke with us about Circle of Women, the Yale chapter, and their goals for changing the world as busy Ivy League students.

Photography by Florian Koenigsberger

Q: Tell us about Circle of Women.

Lauren Hoffman: The mission of Circle of Women is to research and subsequently create
educational solutions for girls in the developing world. We fundraise not only to implement
these projects but also to make sure that they are sustainable ones. We engage with experts and local leaders to ensure this sustainability. We believe that we can effect change on a grassroots level. The official CoW statement is – One educated girl affects one community; one community effects a world of change.

Evie Freeman: A good example of a CoW project is the Keiri Reki Project that was developed by the Harvard chapter. In Keiri Reki, Pakistan, an earthquake damaged the girls’ school. To get the school going again and in acceptable form for girls to attend, bathrooms needed to be repaired, water needed to be flowing again, and computers needed to be purchased. The Harvard chapter researched how these changes could be made. CoW fundraised nationally for these changes. Construction was completed in 2010, and girls have since been able to enroll at the school.

Hoffman and Freeman, both Political Science majors, agreed that working on CoW projects allows students to put their university educations to a meaningful, civic
purpose.

Camille Chambers: It’s important to point out that Circle of Women is about girls’ education- but not just that. We are trying to solve the world’s greatest problems that are attached to educating girls—maternal and child health and other big things. Our main focus is girls’ education, but through that we’re achieving so much more.

Q: Each chapter of Circle of Women has autonomy to work on its own projects. Which have you chosen?

Lauren Hoffman: 10×10 is helping us with our initiative, which involves implementing a
financial literacy campaign. The idea is to close the gap between women and the microfinance organizations that are loaning them money. We’re still looking for a pilot location in Latin America but have made contacts in the region and are in the process of deciding where would be the best inaugural location.

Evie Freeman: Microfinance is a burgeoning idea. Microfinance directed at women is an even more up and coming idea. The important thing, however, is that you can give out loans and not be sure what the recipients will do with them. Research has shown that women are better recipients than men – women will invest their money in their families and communities, creating as Nicholas Kristof and one of our professors, Sheryl WuDunn, define, “a virtuous cycle.”

We want to implement this financial literacy campaign in secondary schools for girls because most of the girls will be the recipients of microloans and microcredit. The campaign will teach them things like how to use a bank account and how to save money. It will teach them personal finance lessons that every girl should learn and follow.

Q: Your group came up with the “Girls + Education = ?” marketing idea that 10×10 is now using as part of its #BasicMath campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. How did you come up with it?

Camille Chambers: We were eating dinner and brainstorming. We really liked the idea of a photo campaign and were trying to think of a good slogan to embrace social media. It was during finals, and we knew that people on campus would be procrastinating on social media.

It’s the idea of people giving their own take on the importance of girls’ education. My gut
reaction to filling in the question mark was “gender equality.” For others, it might be “lower
maternal deaths” or “fewer HIV infections.” We found a friend, Florian Koenigsberger, who is a photographer, went across campus and had people hold up their answer to the equation.

Evie Freeman: When some people think of girls’ education, they might say, “That’s not my cause.” But when you make it an open equation for people to fill in, you make it important to them. We had football players hold up their answer; it gave them a connection to it.

Lauren Hoffman: That was the whole intention. It was our way of introducing Circle of Women to Yale, and we wanted people to respond to it. People really do believe in the same goal — it’s just the variable at the end that changes.

Q: Why did you join up with 10×10?

Lauren Hoffman: What’s great about 10×10 is that they have a big impact in raising awareness on an issue that we are both passionate about on a global scale. The key thing is that 10×10 is not just some huge umbrella organization – 10×10 is really committed to working on collaborating with its partners.

It’s also a really exciting branding and marketing opportunity. We have this message of
furthering women’s education, but we don’t have the beautiful original images to compliment it.

Camille Chambers: 10×10 already has so much clout and it’s doing what it’s doing with the best people.

Q: The three of you surely have your plates full with classes and Camille’s pursuit of a modeling career. How do you find time for Circle of Women?

Lauren Hoffman: Bottom line: we work really well together. In fact, this is the most cohesive team I’ve ever been a part of because we are all so interested and passionate about using our education to make a difference for others.

Camille Chambers: It has been working out really nicely. I’m in charge of social media content, so the bulk of my work is online, which is good because I’m away in New York City. We’re so passionate about doing this that it’s not a burden on our schedules. We look forward to working on it.

Evie Freeman: I couldn’t imagine school without it. It really connects with what I’m learning in class.

For more information on Circle of Women, check out circleofwomen.org. If you are interested in reaching Evie Freeman, Lauren Hoffman, and Camille Chambers directly, please email them at yale@circleofwomen.org.

How to host a great International Day of the Girl event

Have you heard? October 11, 2012 is the world’s FIRST ‘International Day of the Girl’, and thousands of people around the world right now are making plans for a celebration.

Are you?

Global change starts locally, and International Day of the Girl is the moment to generate local conversation about how your community can help write a better future for girls. We’re hosting an event in New York City, and we hope that you will join us by hosting an event in your own community.  We have already gotten over 165 confirmed events on 6 continents around the globe!

Are you someone who cares about making the world better for girls? There is NO limit on how you can celebrate! Host a panel by inviting experts on girls’ education or poverty alleviation to speak and hold a discussion on the untapped potential of girls worldwide. Or join the 10×10 book club with your friends and have a dinner party using recipes from the 10×10 book club toolkit. Or start a petition, or hold a rally! Invite change makers! Just stand up and do something. Every little bit counts. We have all the resources you need to help you personalize your event.

So, here are some tips on how to host a great International Day of the Girl event:

1. Register your event with 10×10: When you register you will get access to all the tools and materials you may need to host an event in our resource center. AND, your event will be featured for the world to see on our events map.

2. Educate yourself: Why girls? What is International Day of the Girl? What’s the 10×10 Campaign all about? How is educating girls one of the most efficient ways to break cycles of poverty and make the world a better place? Find all the answers to these questions and more:

3. Get started: Think about what this day means to you. What do you want to accomplish, and what should your event look like? Read our “Guide to Hosting an Event” for some excellent tips, but make the event your own.

  • Are you a college student? Our friends from HerCampus.com list a plethora of interesting ways to celebrate on your campus.
  • Are you an artist? Hold a photo exhibit! Here’s access to some of 10×10′s stunning photography (password: dayofthegirl) from the field, pre-branded for International Day of the Girl with informative statistics and inspirational quotes.
  • Are you a movie buff? Host a screening! You can download the 10×10 “Because I am a girl” video (password: 10x10act) now. On October 10th you’ll receive an exclusive link to the 10×10 film teaser and campaign trailer, along with 3 short talks on the power of girls’ education from the speakers at our event in New York City.
  • Are you a storyteller? Download the 10×10 International Day of the Girl PowerPoint presentation, and make it your own! Use our photos and facts to help engage your audience with compelling data on the unlimited potential of girls around the world. Stay tuned for suggested “talking points” to be posted in our resource center next week.
  • Are you a parent, or an educator? Here’s a writing exercise you can do with both boys and girls inside the classroom or in your home. In the coming weeks, we will be posting a curriculum created by the Pearson Foundation, including lesson plans for students ages 8-11 to support International Day of the Girl.
  • Are you an athlete? Host a Girl’s Run with our friends from Give Running.
  • Are you a musician? Stage a concert to fundraise or simply raise awareness.

4. Make it happen: Once you have your event all planned out, it’s time to spread the word.

  • Use our individual and NGO/Organization invitations to let your guests know about your International Day of the Girl event. 
  • Tell the world you’re taking action through social media. Our Social Media How-To Guide is packed full with Tweets, Facebook posts, Pinterest photos, and all sorts of information on how to use each social media platform to your advantage. 

Use our event planning check-list to help you organize your timeline and make sure you have all your bases covered. Whatever you decide to do on International Day of the Girl, help drive ACTION! 

Collective action can and will lead to positive change. Together we can make a difference. Together we will change the world! Stand up for girls on October 11th, the world’s FIRST International Day of the Girl. Four weeks left and counting….

77.6 Million Girls Are NOT Going Back-to-School


School. What comes to mind when you think about school? Close your eyes and think for a second.

I think of books full of knowledge waiting to be devoured. I think of teachers standing in front of the class, doing the best they can to shape lives every single day. I think of cramming for tests, homework assignments I procrastinated, and that anxious feeling the day before I stepped back into those halls after a summer that went by too quickly. I think of my peers, and I smile and think of my friends and the endless memories that I will have forever. I think of the skills and confidence and knowledge that I gained, to prepare me to stand on my own as a positive contributing member of society.

I spent the better part of 13 years of my life inside a classroom and I honestly can’t imagine where or who I would be, without that. But though my formal schooling has ended I am still a student. We are all students. And it’s time that the citizens of this world educate themselves on the status of girls’ education.

As you read this sentence, millions of people around the world, young and old, male and female, are sitting in classrooms. But what about the 77.6 million girls around the world who are NOT going back to school this fall? What happens to them? What happens to us? 

Most people don’t realize that globally, education is still far from equal. And though there are thousands of people on the ground trying to turn the tide, currently 86 countries are still at risk of not achieving the Millennium Development Goal of gender parity by 2015.

Why is it so difficult to make progress? Most people—most nations–aren’t aware of how big of an issue this even is. Most people aren’t aware that by not educating girls, everyone is effected. Today, when international development funds are allocated, less than 2 cents of every dollar is directed specifically to girls.

So why aren’t girls getting to school?

  • Because their families can’t afford the school fees, or need their daughters to work to help support the family. Around the world, 250 million adolescent girls live in poverty
  • Because they’re married off as children. One in seven girls in the developing world is married before her 15th birthday.
  • Because getting to school is dangerous - an estimated 60 million girls are sexually assaulted at or on their way to school. 
  • Because they don’t have access to clean facilities – 1 in 10 school-age African girls do not attend school during menstruation, or drop out at puberty because of the lack of clean and private sanitation facilities in schools. 
  • Because there are no laws to protect them, or the laws that exist aren’t being enforced.

Because girls education is not looked at as something that’s of value. BUT research has proven time and time again, that when you educate a girl, you can break cycles of poverty in just one generation. Ultimately, 65 low and middle income countries are losing approximately $92 billion per year by failing to educate girls to the same standards as boys

Here are the facts:

  • When 10% more girls go to school, a country’s GDP increases on average by 3%
  • An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10-20 % An extra year of secondary school: 15-25 %. 
  •  When a girl in the developing world receives 7 or more years of education, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
  • Children born to educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of 5.
  • Women who are educated are 50% more likely to immunize their children.
  • A girl who completes basic education is three times less likely to contract HIV.

In the words of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, “We must remind ourselves that ensuring the rights of women and girls is not only a matter of justice. It is a matter of enhancing global peace, progress and prosperity for generations to come.” Educating girls is not just the RIGHT thing to do, it’s the SMART thing to do.

Help us educate these girls. Because they will change the world.

Raise your voice for girls education. Share this with everyone you know. Now.

Join us to spark conversation on raising the value of the girl on October 11th: the world’s first International Day of the Girl.

 

Forbes Salutes Women Changing the World!

Forbes recently challenged women from a variety of fields with a question:

Who is paving the way for girls and women in the future?

I was thrilled to have the opportunity share my my own power list of five trail blazing women who are key architects for change and empowering women worldwide. For the full article featuring women changing the world in Media, Maternal Health, Public Policy, Philanthropy, Business, Sports, and beyond check out:  Forbes: Women Changing the World

Here are my top pics for women changing the world in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics):

Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo!

In a masterful stroke of glass-ceiling shattering, Marissa Meyer boldly announced her first pregnancy on the same day that she accepted the helm of Yahoo! Working mothers everywhere cheered as Marissa did so publicly what they do privately every single day: She’s making it work to work.

 

Rosalind Hudnell, Chief Diversity Officer, Intel

The force behind Intel’s Computer Clubhouse Network, which over the past decade has touched 50,000 youth in STEM focused afterschool programs around the world. Not satisfied with that, and in collaboration with President Obama’s Council on Jobs & Competitiveness, she developed the Stay With It initiative, the first ever national online support network for students pursuing degrees in engineering and computer science.

Kristen Titus, Executive Director of Girls Who Code

Activist. Technologist. Feminist. Culturalist. Idealist. Titus is all that, and she is the Executive Director of Girls Who Code, an organization working to educate, inspire and equip 13- to 17-year-old girls with the skills and resources to pursue opportunities in technology and engineering. Girl coders = good for business.

Noorjahan Akbar, Cofounder, Young Women for Change

Dozens of women flock each day through the discreetly marked doors of Akbar’s Sahar Gul Cafe, Afghanistan’s first all-female Internet café. Through Young Women for Change, she is ensuring that Afghan girls and women have a safe place to connect to the world and have a platform to socialize, study and advocate.

Esther Duflo, Founder and Director, Jameel Poverty Action Lab, MIT

Takes economics out of the lab and into the field to discover the causes of poverty and high-impact ways to eradicate it. Asks questions like, “If more girls could afford a school uniform, would more girls go to school?” and watches the data make the arguments for her.

 

Quality Learning Shouldn’t Be a Pipe Dream

Sitting in the 10×10 office, my focus firmly rooted on upcoming production trips to Uganda and Egypt, Sierra Leone suddenly feels so far away. But only last week, I was braving the Freetown heat, capturing the first meeting between 10×10 writer, Aminatta Forna and our Sierra Leonean girl, 16-year-old, Mariama.

Mariama turned sixteen last month and by many accounts, she resembles any urban teenage girl. She is glued to her mobile phone, preoccupied with her hair, her clothes, and pop-culture. She is, however, equally interested in science and impressed us with her way around a velocity equation. Sure, my physics is a bit rusty, but I’m fairly sure that even at my peak, I couldn’t solve the “rate of x” with Mariama’s speed and confidence.

So, when Mariama shares her dream to become a research scientist within the ranks of Newton, Einstein, Watson and Crick, I reply, optimistically, “Why not?!” An eyeful of Mariama’s physics lab, though, answers my rhetorical question. Overcrowded classes of 70, absentee teachers, insufficient and broken equipment, decades-old textbooks—it’s a challenging environment in which to develop fertile minds. This scenario is all the more disheartening considering that Mariama attends St. Joseph’s, one of the best government secondary schools in Sierra Leone. She was awarded a scholarship here because she excelled in primary school and it was clear that St. Joseph’s would afford Mariama better educational opportunities than her local secondary. What stirs a certain frustration, though, is that the “best,” in this case, isn’t enough; that Mariama, and the 15% of Sierra Leonean girls who defy the odds by making it to secondary school, face still more hurdles when it comes to realizing their dreams.

They are learning; that much is evident. But what could they achieve if they had the resources to learn to their fullest potential? A Bunsen burner for every pair of students instead of every 15; teachers who actually come to class; textbooks to take home; exams that don’t cost a fee. These shouldn’t be pipe dreams— but in Sierra Leone, they are. It is important to understand the context of the situation, to understand that Sierra Leone’s education system—once storied in Africa—was essentially decimated by the recent civil war, which ended in 2001. Ten years of conflict destroyed 80% of the educational infrastructure across the country and left 67 % of all school-age children out of school. The fact that by 2007 this percentage had been reduced to 30% is no small feat.

Mariama and her classmates pour over problem sets undeterred by these facts, ready to learn despite their uninspiring surroundings. This first generation of post-war Sierra-Leonean students is living proof that access to education is just the fist step in building human capacity. In Sierra Leone, as everywhere, the second step towards building an economy of innovation and entrepreneurship must be investing in the quality of education.

So despite the decaying halls and complacent teachers, I decide to remain optimistic that recent progress won’t lose momentum. Mariama and her peers deserve as much. The future Newtons, Mandelas, and Chopins of the country depend on it.

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