Education is a basic human right and often a way out of poverty. Thus, governmental policies and other agencies emphasize access to free or low-cost education. While providing free education is a worthy goal, access alone is not sufficient. What happens when students are too poor to take advantage of it? Can anyone be really too poor to afford “free” education? If such a scenario exists, what does it mean to provide holistic educations for a community? To change the conversation from seemingly distant “future value of education” to immediate “what I will get today,” or more importantly, “why should I go to school today?” We in the Rukmini Foundation realized that we need to think differently and come up with innovative solutions. Through this post, we will summarize our key efforts that shed lights on these vexing questions, which are common to all underdeveloped nations in the world.
Girl Rising, the 5th anniversary film at the heart of Girl Rising’s campaign for girls’ education and empowerment, features nine girls who have confronted challenges in going to and staying in school. While these girls exhibit extraordinary courage, strength, and perseverance, they are also thoroughly ordinary – representing some of the millions of girls around the world struggling to go to and stay in school.
"Traveling to Nepal (or any developing country for that matter) can often be seen in a series of pictures or images that we can look back on and learn from. On my recent return trip to Nepal to review work done by Edge of Seven I also had a series of images that were important in telling a story of the importance of girls’ education in fighting poverty." edgeofseven.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/nepal-snapshots-of-hope-from-march-2018/
The #MeToo movement, which took the world by storm last year gave women a platform to discuss the abuse or injustices that they have experienced in their lives. For many young women and girls it has been an opportunity to speak out and demand change. But which voices are still silent and who do we still need to listen to?
On February 14, 2018, Global Campaign for Education-US spoke with 5th grade scholars in California. We discussed their project, which focused on girls' education. They had great questions, made posters and organized a book drive to benefit children in countries around the world. Thank you to the scholars of Academia Moderna. Please check out the video to hear about the wonderful work they are doing! Check out this wonderful video!
The theme of this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign was ‘make education safe for all.’ Over the course of the 16 days, Women Thrive Alliance shared the work – campaigns, capacity building techniques, and achievements – of our Alliance members that work relentlessly on gender-based violence that restricts girls from getting an education. Unfortunately, in many instances, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and rape were the common culprits preventing a girl from continuing her education. In the case of Afghanistan, however, a girl’s mere chance of being allowed any education at all was the baseline.
That’s not so remarkable, until I tell you that she is only 25.
No matter how you calculate the math and circumstances that result in a young lady becoming a grandmother at age 25, it is horrific. There is no instant panacea that will make instances like this history. In this particular case, I can point to a long civil war, with its attendant atrocities, as well as child marriage, poverty, and other factors as contributory, but I really started the story this way to make the point that in our drive for accurate statistics with which to make decisions, we must never lose sight of the fact that those statistics point to real people, with real stories, and with very real barriers to overcome.
I wasn’t a huge video game player as a kid but I definitely appreciated a good game of Mario Brothers or Duck Hunt (I am clearly showing my age here). When I was really doing well, I would get a bonus--a "power up" --something extra that would help me immediately or later in the game. Supporting women and girls in reaching their dreams is like one big power up for the world.
