How Do We Build a World Where Every Girl Can Thrive?

[niyad]

How Do We Build a World Where Every Girl Can Thrive?
10/10/2022 by Susan M. Blaustein



A young girl at the Sacred Heart School in Banket, Zimbabwe, on Nov. 10, 2016. (Christian Ender / Getty Images)

The world commemorates the 10th annual International Day of the Girl on Oct. 11, a day recognizing the unique challenges girls face. As the COVID-19 pandemic eases its grip on the globe, celebrating this day truthfully means asking ourselves: What must we do to ensure that all the world’s girls are free to attend school, acquire skills, and lead healthy, fulfilled lives? Although the task may sound daunting, we can look to a record of achievement to spur us on: The nearly-two decades prior to the pandemic saw 82 million more girls in school, girls’ primary school enrollment up 65 percent, and a 25-percent increase in parity between girls and boys completing primary school, according to the Global Partnership for Education—all since 2002.

Yet 129 million girls are still shut out, with one in three adolescent girls from the poorest families having never set foot in a classroom, and 12 million under 18 forced to marry each year. Moreover, among the pandemic’s worst legacies has been its ravaging blow to these decades of progress, with 20 million additional secondary school-age girls who may never return to school, according to Malala Fund. Today’s girls, though, are not to be deterred: They are still dreaming, and dreaming big, which they made clear in a recent virtual convening of teen girls and young women working with two WomenStrong International grantee partners, Girl Up Initiative Uganda and The Girls’ Legacy, in Zimbabwe. Girl Up and Girls’ Legacy staff co-created this “cross-country collaborative call” to bring girls together to speak about challenges in their communities, what they’d change about girls’ status there, and their own dreams and aspirations.

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For these young women, and millions more, it’s time we redouble our efforts. We know if every girl finished primary school, maternal deaths would decrease by two-thirds. And if all girls finished high school, child marriage would be reduced by two-thirds. We know, too, that every literate mother’s child is 50 percent more likely to be immunized, to live past age 5, and is twice as likely to attend school. We dare not squander this boundless potential—for healthy families, for innovation and entrepreneurship, for visionary leadership, and, with the higher lifetime earnings of educated women participating fully in the workforce, for a boost to the world’s economies by up to $30 trillion.
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This year’s theme for the International Day of the Girl is “Our time is now, our rights, our future.”

When our partners participating in a cross-country convening reflected on what the theme meant to them “as a girl,” the young women’s responses could not have been clearer, or more united.

“Our tomorrow is now!” said Hilda from Zimbabwe.

“It is our time to fight for our future and our rights,” said 17-year-old Ugandan Shadia.

“My dream should be able to shake the world,” said 23-year-old Clare, also in Uganda.

It’s high time we listen to them, and high time we rededicate ourselves, this year, and over the years to come, as the world re-emerges, to reimagining and rebuilding a world and a future in which these bold young women’s dreams can come true.


https://msmagazine.com/2022/10/10/girls-education-covid/