The Girl Effect

Hundreds of bloggers are writing about The Girl Effect today. What is The Girl Effect? Here’s the simple idea, in about 2 minutes:

Why? Here’s some facts:
When it comes to girls in the developing world, there is bad news and good news.

The bad news:

• 25% of girls in the developing world are not in school
• 1 in 7 marries before age 15. 38% are married by the time they are 18.
• Complications from pregnancy are the #1 cause of death for girls age 15-19 in the developing world – because their bodies are not yet ready to bear children. Compared with women age 20-24, girls 10-14 are 5x more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15-19 are twice as likely.
• One study showed that women who are married before age 18 are twice as likely to report being slapped, beaten or threatened as girls who married later

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The hopeful, remarkable, very good news:

• on average, when a girl receives 7 or more years of school, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children
• only 1 extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual ages by 10-20%
• when women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90% of it into their families, as compared to only 30-40% for a man.

That is why the global community is now recognizing that investing in girls’ education and health is the #1 solution to bring entire families and communities out of poverty.

When girls thrive, everyone thrives. I love the video below because it shows how one confident young woman can make a big difference – she started her business with $37:

If you’d like to spread the word, write a post and link up at Tara Mohr’s site.

Here’s a giving page, too.