Meet some of the inspiring girls 10×10 encounters on location.

World Poetry Day: Celebrating Senna

Today, in celebration of World Poetry Day, we want to introduce to you Senna’s artistry, her soul, and her craft.

As described by writer Marie Arana, Senna has “a poet’s soul and a warrior’s core,” with an electric, rhythmic cadence when she speaks, and a resiliency that’s immediately palpable in her presence.

Senna’s favorite poet is Cesar Vallejo. Our favorite poet is Senna. She is one of the unforgettable girls of Girl Rising.

Here, the young writer recites a favorite Vallejo poem with an intensity and spirit that foretell success far beyond the makeshift walls of her family’s mining-shanty home. Watch for her shy smile at the end – and you’ll see a girl ready to rise:

Read her extraordinary poem, in English or Spanish, “Friend, Don’t Stay Behind,” here:

FRIEND, DON’T STAY BEHIND

Friend, why are you like that,
so sad. What’s wrong with you?
Tell me.
Friend, don’t be like that,
don’t you know
you can surmount
any problem? Let’s talk.

I know that problem.
I too passed through it,
but look at me
now, I’ve walked ahead,
with all my might.

You do it, friend,
I know you can
Walk. You can.
I did it too.

No, don’t thank me,
friend. Help those
who need
as much as you
have needed.

Helping, you will gather
the courage, the strength
to make another stronger.

Come, walk, we will do this together
now, friend.

–Puno, February, 2013

In Spanish:

AMIGA, NO TE QUEDES ATRAS

Amiga, porque estás así
tan triste. Que te
pasa? Cuentame.
Amiga, no te pongas así,
no sabes que
tú puedes salir
adelante de cualquier
problema que tengas? Hablemos.

Amiga, ya se que estás
pasando por ese problema,
yo tambien pase por lo mismo,
pero ahora
me ves, he salido adelante
poniendo todo mi esfuerzo.

Tú puedes, amiga,
yo se que tú puedes
salir. Vas a poder.

No, no me agradezcas,
amiga. Ayuda a otras
que lo necesitan
como tú lo
has necesitado.

Ayudalas, y tendrás la
valentía, la fuerza
de poder hacer mas fuertes a los demás.
Ven, sal, lo haremos juntas
ahora, amiga.

–Puno, febrero, 2013

Senna, 14, attended school at the insistence of her father, who died after years toiling in the gold mines in a gritty mountain village in the Peru’s Puno province. Senna excelled in school and developed a love for poetry. Today, she attends a secondary school supported by CARE, and continues to be inspired to write poetry. To learn more about CARE’s Education work, please visit this link.

Interested in reading more about Senna? Please visit this World Vision blog post featuring more of Senna’s words on World Poetry Day.

Roni: Host Captain

When Roni LaBarbera agreed to host a young Afghan woman in her North Carolina home two years ago, she didn’t foresee that visit would be the catalyst for launching her Afghan Women’s Education Project.

The teenager, Husnia, only needed lodging for a few weeks. She was a volunteer interpreter for a hospitalized Afghan boy who was arriving in the U.S. for life-saving surgery. Husnia had never been to a movie theatre or an airport, but she made the risky decision to leave her homeland to accompany the ailing child. Roni, who runs a tutoring business, was impressed by Husnia’s dedication to learning medical terms and studying English. She felt compelled to aid Husnia’s pursuit of education. Roni helped Husnia apply to nearby universities and eventually enroll in college.

“When you see a young woman who doesn’t have the opportunity to be the best she can be, you can’t walk away from that.”

Since then, Roni has also helped Husnia’s twin sister get accepted into college, assisted a young woman in obtaining a visa so she could keep her scholarship, and guided a girl in finding a host family so she could continue attending school. Now Roni is a screening captain for Girl Rising with two sold-out showings. Roni has already rolled out her welcome mat for determined young women seeking education and soon she’ll roll out the red carpet for Husnia to give the opening remarks at her screenings!

Celebrate International Day of the Girl Online!

On International Day of the Girl 10×10 is bringing the celebration to social media!

Join the conversation on Twitter.  From 9am to 9pm EST, we will be hosting an International Day of the Girl 12-hour Tweet-A-Thon, covering a range of topics, from the barriers to education girls face, to ways you can get involved. Featuring discussions with several non-profits supporting girls’ empowerment, female bloggers and influencers. Follow along and join the conversation all day using the hashtag #IDG2012.

Unite together on Facebook. Join several like-minded non-profits in a united Facebook Cover Photo Takeover in honor of International Day of the Girl. Join us! Together, let’s stand up for girls using the following Facebook profile photo:

Join us in celebrating the world’s first International Day of the Girl


Celebrate with 10×10! – Images by 10×10 Act

Its official! October 11th, 2012 has been named the world’s FIRST ‘International Day of the Girl’ by the United Nations, and we invite you to join us in celebration.

Hundreds of people around the world are raising their voices for girls online and by hosting 10×10 events in their communities, to show that investing in girls is not just RIGHT, but SMART. 10×10 is hosting an event in New York City, and I hope that you will join us by hosting an event in your own community.

Become a part of this global celebration!

International Day of the Girl is THE moment to generate local conversation about how your community can help write a better future for girls. Hosting an event is easy: it’s about people gathering friends, family, and colleagues and sharing the simple facts and stories that make the case that empowering girls will bring about transformational change. Its a CELEBRATION for girls around the world!

When you register you will get access to all the tools and materials you may need to host or attend an event in our resource center. We’ll also send you exclusive 10×10 video content including a sneak peek of the film and highlights from the 10×10 event in New York City (expect details soon).

You can help build excitement leading up to International Day of the Girl by spreading the word on Twitter about why educating girls is #BasicMath.

Why #BasicMath? Around the world, millions of girls face barriers to education that boys do not: early and forced marriage, domestic slavery, sex trafficking, gender violence and discrimination, school fees, access to markets.  And yet, when you educate a girl you can break cycles of poverty in just one generation. Educating girls means not only a better life for them, but a safer, healthier, and more prosperous world for all.

Research proves, when you mix girls and education you get:

  • A GDP increase of 3% when the number of girls in school grows by only 10%
  • Marriage postponed by 4 years and 2.2 fewer children, when a girl attends school for only 7 years
  • A 50% greater likelihood of immunizing children
  • A wage increase of 15% after only one year of primary education

It’s as simple as #BasicMath.  When you educate girls, extraordinary things happen. To me, Girls + Education = Prosperity.  What does it mean to you? Join our Twitter campaign and simply tweet the following equation and make it your own by filling in the blank:

Girls + Education = ____ It’s #BasicMath.

Together we can make difference. Raise your voice on online and celebrate International Day of the Girl. Sign up to host a 10×10 International Day of the Girl event and share your support for girls on Twitter.  Collective action can and will lead to powerful change.


Lets join forces to RAISE the value of the girl. Thank you so much for your support.

$5 Changed My Life

I was born in Fiji and I know firsthand what it is like having an extremely humble background, coming from a rural area and a minority community. My only “luck” was having an opportunity to go to school, and I absolutely loved it.  I still love it today! Even when I was dreadfully sick, I never missed a day.  I loved school so much, that I often competed with my friends who lived near the school to see who could be first to arrive. It so happened that I lived the furthest, but I always won.  Nothing in the world would come between me and my school!

So it’s no secret that I loved going to school, but how I got there each year is the real story; a story of uncertainty that no child should have to face. A story that felt just short of a miracle every year.

I will never forget the days when I waited by the school gate for my mother to bring me the $5 school administration fees I needed for each school term. While primary school is free in Fiji, we needed to pay a supplementary school administration fee in order to go to school. I still remember sitting in fear with tears in my eyes by the school gate waiting for my mother. I watched the road for the bus, and with each bus that went by without my mother getting off, my heart would sink. I was paralyzed by fear because I did not want to be sent home.

Since then, I have never stopped believing in how far $5 can go in a poor girl’s life. My parents often could not afford to send all my siblings to school. I was the youngest, so that $5 fee needed to stay in school came last to me. I would worry every term that this time there wouldn’t be enough.  That $5 represented my dreams, my happiness…and my future.  Milk was a luxury we couldn’t afford, but somehow, my mother managed to feed us a diet that was basic and filling while saving every penny she could.  She would travel a great distance each week to put what she had saved in a savings account to pay for our schooling.  Having that $5 each term to stay in school changed my life.

My parents never used the word poor. I had never known of a new uniform or pair of shoes until I went to high school. I was usually oblivious of such things and it rarely crossed my mind that my things were not always new at the beginning of the school year. Maybe it was because so many of my friends were the same. My parents just wanted us to keep our heads down and study.  I was happiest when I was in school, and for that matter, those memories still make me smile.

Having an education changed my entire world. I have worked in Australia, Europe and Africa, and now I live in New York. Education has enabled me to travel the world and has given me opportunities to work on issues that I am deeply passionate about.  But above all education has allowed me not to be just a bystander or an observer; it has given me the opportunity, confidence and platform to be part of decision making, of leading initiatives and becoming a voice for social change and helping women. Education also opened the door for me so that I am not just a poor woman relying on others to help me lift myself or my community out of poverty. I am at the forefront of leading and working with my own peers to make the world a better place. I have led projects in conflict and development settings that include human rights, transitional justice, gender issues, sustainable development and human trafficking.

Having been one of the millions of poor girls facing the constant struggle to stay in school each term, I can say without hesitation – education indeed changed my life!

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Ms. Praveen Prasad is a Global Champion for 10×10.  She is the Development Director with TrustAfrica- a leading Pan-African Foundation that focuses on democracy, governance, and development. Ms. Prasad is the Co-Chair of the Woman Advancing Microfinance (WAM-NY), is on the committee for Inclusiveness and Diversity as well as a fellow with the Council on Foundations. She is also leading the Africa for Haiti coalition. Originally from the Fiji Islands she is also a national of Australia. She has worked for over 10 years in international relief, peace and justice, and development. Her field postings and experiences have included working in over 17 countries in Africa. Prior to being based in New York, Praveen was based in Sudan, DR Congo and Malawi overseeing multiple large-scale relief, peace building and development programs. She previously held positions with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations and with international NGOs. Currently, she is also leading the “Africa for Haiti” initiative. Praveen holds a master’s degree in Political Science and in International Relations. She is multilingual and in her spare time enjoys sports, writing, photography and exploring history of world cultures.

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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