By girls’ education activist Selina Nkoile and ONE Policy Manager Gabriele Simeone
In the Maasai community, girls are booked for marriage at the age of 6, sometimes earlier. Once married off — generally, at age 12 — their fathers are compensated for their daughters with cows (or ng’ombe in Swahili), the most precious assets a Maasai family can have.
Before being married off though, child brides have to go through female genital mutilation and — if they survive — become wives...
Education
These two teens from Senegal are fighting for girls’ education!
“In the world today, if you don’t study, you will lose out. I want to study until I achieve something.” — Safi
Safi and Dieynabah, 18, are trailblazers. They have fought hard to stay in school and get a good education.
It hasn’t been easy. They were both under pressure to get married — but refused — and persuaded their parents to let them stay in school. That alone is a huge achievement,...
Story by Megan Gieske; photos courtesy of Breadline Africa.
Breadline Africa started as a grant-giving organization, where those in need applied for funding and Breadline Africa raised the funds to meet them. Almost 25 years later, those in need can still apply, but assistance comes in a new shape and size — infrastructure!
Marion Wagner, Director of Breadline Africa, says that much of South Africa’s infrastructure is unsafe. For parents who work, this can mean sending their children to schools or...
By Chris Kardish, Raimund Zühr, Sabine Campe (SEEK Development)
There are few United Nations goals with a bigger impact across the entire development agenda than education. Improving the health of societies, reducing poverty and inequality, eradicating hunger, empowering women – all of them require giant leaps forward in global education. But as many researchers and advocates have pointed out, getting there will require more investment, including from wealthier donor countries to developing countries.
However, existing data reveals the opposite: donor country...
From Malala Yousafzai to the Chibok girls, stories of girls who sought to pursue an education – and experienced violence at the hands of extremists as a result – are all too common. And the stories of violence we hear about pale in comparison to those that don’t get as much media attention – stories of millions of girls worldwide who are harassed or face threats every day on their commute to school, or those whose teachers or classmates...
This post by Meagan Neal, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), is the third post in a blog series on overcoming barriers to girls’ education, based on J-PAL’s new Bulletin on improving student enrollment and attendance. Read the first post summarizing these barriers here and learn more about the first-order barrier of travel time here.
In 2003 in western Kenya, a school uniform cost $6. This might seem like a small cost—but for poor families, it was a substantial out-of-pocket expense. Meanwhile,...
130 million girls didn’t go to school today— not because they didn’t want to, but because they weren’t given the chance.
There are dire consequences to not educating girls. In many countries, girls out of school will be more likely to become child brides, more vulnerable to diseases like HIV, and more likely to die young. For example, if current trends in education continue, by 2050, this is the future we’re looking at: Low-income countries alone will lose $1.8 trillion;...
This post originally appeared on Global Citizen.
In the last 500 years, a certain kind of map has been used to teach children about our planet. But public schools in Boston have made a big change — and it might alter the way you think about the world.
It’s about power.
Most might recognize the old map from faded school textbooks. It’s called the Mercator projection. In 1569, Gerardus Mercator built a whole world drawn along colonial lines — literally. The biggest economic powers were given...
Nowhere on earth do women have as many opportunities as men. Nowhere. But for girls and women in the poorest countries, that inequality is amplified. Right now, there are over 130 million girls around the world being denied an education — and thus the chance to reach their full potential.
Educate a girl in one of the world’s poorest countries, and it boosts her health, wealth, and ability to take control of her life. She’s less likely to become a...
Educating girls can change the world.
Girls who get a complete, quality education are more likely to be healthier and better prepared to enter and succeed in the workforce. Education can give girls more opportunities to advocate for their own rights, contribute to their families and communities, and grow local and global economies.
But over 130 million girls didn’t go to school today. Millions more braved long distances, often in dangerous conditions, to get there. Other girls arrived at school to...