In the developing world, education is the best way for her to escape the vicious cycle of childhood marriage, pre-teen pregnancy and domestic abuse. When she goes to school, she lives a healthier life, earns more, and makes her community stronger. Educated girls like her are crucial to erasing global poverty and minimizing conflict, and the world needs them now, more than ever!
AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN
TO HER
School gives her the critical thinking needed to form informed opinions, and the confidence to voice them when it counts. If she completes middle school, she is 4 times less likely to get married off as a child! Her children are twice as likely to live past the age of 5, while she is 3 times more likely to survive childbirth.
TO HER COMMUNITY
She will earn twice as much and invest 90% of it back into her family. She will send her daughters to school and act as the role-model that she never had. She, and her classmates, will decrease the likelihood of alcoholism and domestic abuse in her village. They will make her community more tolerant and open-minded.
TO THE WORLD
When women learn, they are more likely to earn. And their earnings, according to the World Bank, is a key to ending global poverty. They reduce the risk of conflict and war, by 50%, according to the Malala fund. The Brookings institute thinks educating girls is one of the most effective ways to fight climate change.
10% of every purchase (~50% of our profits) directly go to girls education programs. Each of these programs targets a specific obstacle in each community that prevents girls from going to school.
WHAT OUR PROGRAMS DO
Fight Gender Inequity
Nearly 3 million girls in rural India are out of school. They have free access to government schools but centuries-old deep-rooted traditional beliefs stand in the way - beliefs about the role of a girl in her family and in society. We fund programs that employ every trick in the book - awareness campaigns, amateur psychology skills, local knowledge and experience - to get girls into school. They typically increase enrollments in entire villages to 90% within months.
Re-integrate Drop-outs
Child marriage and household labor force many girls out of school. For these teens - their way back to school gets harder with each missed year. Some of our funded programs are intense bootcamps that get girls up to the academic literacy needed for them to rejoin school. Other programs help girls who have practical barriers to attending school (such as caring for a newborn) by staffing community learning centers that provide a continuing learning alternative.
Provide Infrastructure
Many schools are severely underfunded and lack the most basic amenities such as classrooms, books, and basic sanitary facilities. We provide bridge funds to local non-profit partners so that they can take on infrastructure projects such as construction of classrooms and libraries. We also direct fund wages of teachers where it can directly impact enrollments. Sometimes, the addition of just a single teacher in a school can have a huge impact on attendance.
