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National Committee Australia

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In September 2017 the UNAA is hosting its two day National Conference on the theme of: 'Enhancing Australia's S...

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Exploring the Sustainable Development Goals

March 23, 2017 // by Allison Kooser

The question is: why? | The Need is Great | The Impact is Significant | The Ripple Effect Changes the World | Opportunity's Response | Empowered Women: The Secret Weapon

For those of us working in and supporting international development initiatives, we know that investing in and empowering women and girls is popular and ubiquitous. It is no surprise to us that the Sustainable Development Goals include not only gender-specific actions and statistics, but also an entire goal dedicated to gender parity.

The fifth Sustainable Development Goal is bold, broad and important. It challenges the world to: "Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls."

It's a goal that I, as a woman, believe in wholeheartedly. And it's one that seems to be particularly relevant as women and men are rallying for more equal rights, from wage disparities to family leave policies.

It's a goal that motivates Opportunity International's work as well- we are proud that 9 out of 10 clients are women, and with our tools and training, they are working their way out of poverty.

It seems that the development world generally agrees: it's a good idea to invest in and empower women and girls. Opportunity International agrees, and I agree personally, too.

The question is: why?

Clearly, there are the immediate issues of parity, equal treatment and human rights. These go without saying and surely provide enough justification for women-centric programming in and of themselves.

We fight for goals like this if for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. Women deserve fundamental human rights, and the Sustainable Development Goals highlight this human responsibility to treat one another with respect and honor."

These are the factors that shape Sustainable Development Targets such as, "Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation." We fight for goals like this if for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. Women deserve fundamental human rights, and the Sustainable Development Goals highlight this human responsibility to treat one another with respect and honor.

But beyond simple human decency, there are other factors at play that make gender equality such a significant priority for those working in development around the world.

As it turns out, women are one of the most powerful investments we can make in building a better future.

The Need is Great

From childhood, you will face hurdles that will hinder your education, development and advancement. Because your family has limited resources, when it's time for you to start school, your parents decide to educate your brothers instead of you..."

Between the initiation and completion of the original Millennium Development Goals from 2000 to 2015, the world made significant progress toward gender equality. But despite ongoing initiatives designed to target major issues like education inequality, access to health care, job creation and equal pay, women still face notable (and measurable) disadvantages.

These inequalities provide the impetus for change. They illustrate the needs that continue to present themselves, and the challenges that remain despite improvements over the past three decades.

Imagine you are a girl born in the developing world.

From childhood, you will face hurdles that will hinder your education, development and advancement. Because your family has limited resources, when it's time for you to start school, your parents decide to educate your brothers instead of you-a reality in the 30% of countries still fighting for gender parity in primary school. Because you don't go to school, you don't learn to read and write, making you one of the 781 million illiterate women around the world.

As you grow, because you are home more often than your brothers, you are given a disproportionate share of the household chores and responsibilities-tasks like walking miles for water and caring for younger siblings. When a man approaches your family requesting marriage your parents oblige, and you are now one of the 37,000 girls under age 18 to get married that day. There will be 37,000 more the next day, and the day after that.

Without access to adequate family planning, contraception or health care, you get pregnant early. Because only half of pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa have access to prenatal care, you face an unmonitored pregnancy, made more complicated by trauma or mutilation you may have suffered earlier in life. Thankfully, you give birth to a healthy baby despite limited medical care, but now you need to support not only yourself, but this new life as well.

If you are lucky, you might find a job that empowers you to support your family. But even then, you are at a disadvantage compared to your male counterparts. Women in sub-Saharan Africa, on average, earn 35% less than men for equal work. Women are also much less likely (26% less) to be employed than men, and for those who do find work, 75% of it is in the informal economy, leaving women unprotected in cases of theft, sexual harassment and discrimination. ⁶

More likely, you will remain at home, responsible for a majority of household tasks and unpaid work such as childcare. Women in the developing world spend three times longer on household responsibilities than men, amounting to $10 trillion worth of unpaid labor. ⁷

Yet despite your prominent role in the home, you may not have any control over household spending. About one third of married women in the developing world have no control over major household purchases, making them passive observers of their own wellbeing. And chances are high that you not only lack autonomy within your home, but you are also entirely excluded from the formal financial sector. Women living on less than $2 per day are 28% less likely to have a formal bank account than men living in extreme poverty ⁸.

Because you are living in poverty in the developing world, you are probably living in a rural region where you are dependent upon agriculture to survive. Already removed from the formal economy and financial sector, you also don't have your own cell phone-the device that connects you to the broader economy and world. Women are 14 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone (200M fewer women than men), which is particularly problematic for rural workers who rely upon these devices for banking and other mobile services. ⁹

Meanwhile, you are disadvantaged on the farm itself. Despite making up 43% or more of the agricultural labor force (up to 60% in countries like Mozambique), women like you don't actually own the land on which they work. In sub-Saharan Africa, where women make up about half of agricultural laborers, they only control 15% of agricultural land holdings. ¹⁰

Because you are a woman, you face systemic, cultural and legal issues, and as a result are more likely to lack access to essential agriculture value chain services, including connections to suppliers of quality inputs, like seed and fertilizer, extension service providers, and off-takers who purchase crops a fair market value. Due to these constraints, you, and women smallholder famers like you, produce 20-30% less than your male counterparts. ¹¹

You return home after a long day on the farm to a house full of children-children who will face the same struggles you faced today, and the same struggles your mother faced years ago. How do I feed my family? How do I educate my kids? How do I choose who goes to school and who doesn't?

And the cycle starts all over again.

This is how women remain excluded-from education, from the formal economy, from banking, from equal rights. Despite working tirelessly, women face hurdle after hurdle, amplified by their geography and generational norms.

Without opportunities to break free from this cycle, women are trapped in a life that they may not have ever chosen-a life that disadvantages not only themselves, but their families and their communities, too.

The Impact is Significant

When girls stay in school, they live longer, healthier lives, marry later, have fewer children, and drastically increase their future incomes. If all girls had a secondary school education, there would be two-thirds fewer teenage pregnancies, and women would have fewer children overall."

In light of the litany of challenges women continue to face around the world, it's no surprise that so many organizations and policies have attempted to address the needs of women and girls. What is perhaps more surprising is the larger-scale impact that these initiatives have.

Programs addressing women's education and economic empowerment are not only beneficial from a human rights perspective, but they are transformative economically as well. Statistically, every additional year of primary school boosts girls' future wages by 10-20 percent, and each extra year of secondary school increases earning by 15-25 percent.

When girls stay in school, they live longer, healthier lives, marry later, have fewer children, and drastically increase their future incomes. If all girls had a secondary school education, there would be two-thirds fewer teenage pregnancies, and women would have fewer children overall. ¹³ And a child born to a mother who can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past age five. ¹⁴ If a girl in the developing world gets seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children than her uneducated sisters.

Girls' education also plays a role in curtailing other public health crises. Between 800 and 1,500 women die each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, including bleeding, infections, hypertensive disorders and obstructed labor - preventative problems that make up about 80 percent of maternal deaths worldwide. ¹⁶ Educated women are far more likely to seek skilled birth attendants and prenatal care, reducing maternal and infant mortality. If all women complete primary education, maternal mortality would fall 66%-from 210 to 71 deaths per 100,000 births. ¹⁷ A study in Zambia found that "AIDS spreads twice as fast among uneducated girls than girls who have access to education. Young rural Ugandans with secondary education are three times less likely to contract HIV." ¹⁸ And educated mothers are more prepared to prevent common causes of death for children under 5, including pneumonia and malaria, which would save an estimated three million lives. ¹⁹

Beyond saving lives and increasing personal earning potential, investing in education and economic empowerment for women can benefit entire economies. Statistically, "Investing in programs improving income-generating activities for women can return $7 for every dollar spent." ²⁰ One study in Kenya showed that if female farmers had access to the same education and resources as male famers, crop yields would increase by 22 percent. ²¹ In Ghana alone, the gender wage gap shrinks from 57% for women with no education to 16% for women with a secondary school education. ²² And globally, women own 40% of the world's informal small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 33% of formal SMEs- 70% of which are largely underserved in terms of access to credit. The estimated credit gap amounts to $285 billion-if closed, the per-capita GDP in developing countries could increase by 12% by 2030.

And this significant impact is not limited to the developing world. "It is estimated that if women's paid employment rates were increased to the same level as men's, the U.S. GDP would be 9 percent higher; the euro area's would be 13 percent higher, and Japan's would be 16 percent higher." ²⁴

The Ripple Effect Changes the World

Earlier this year, Bill and Melinda Gates wrote a letter to Warren Buffett highlighting some of the major insights they have discovered over their years investing in the developing world and building the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In it, they wrote, "All lives have equal value is not just a principle; it's a strategy. You can create all kinds of new tools, but if you're not moving toward equality, you're not really changing the world. You're just rearranging it. When women have the same opportunities as men, families and societies thrive. Obviously, gender equity unleashes women's potential, but it also unleashes men's potential."

And this is the true secret of investing in women.

Every investment that empowers a woman sparks a ripple effect that influences not only her life, but the lives of her family and community, too.

As Sheryl WuDunn writes in Half the Sky, "When you educate a girl, there is a ripple effect that goes beyond what you would get from a normal investment...When you educate a girl, you educate a village." ²⁶

Statistically, women reinvest much more of their incomes into their families to directly benefit their children. ²⁷ Because they more commonly hold roles within the household, women are often responsible for funding their children's educations, preparing healthy food, and accessing medical care for their kids. Women are driving and equipping the next generation-the generation that might break free from extreme poverty.

Through my own work with Opportunity International, I have had the honor of interviewing hundreds of women in various corners of the world -from villages in Latin America to slums in Asia to rural communities in Africa. And without fail, every woman, regardless of geography or circumstance, will answer one question the same way.

When I ask what their dream for their future is, every woman will say: "I want my kids to go to school."

Universally, family is the top priority-and women are working to ensure their families' futures.

This intrinsic-and measured-drive to pay it forward is the hidden value of investing in women. It's why organizations get so excited about policies and initiatives targeting women. Because they know that when you empower a woman, you empower a family. You unlock a wave of potential that will have a multiplying, generational legacy.

Opportunity's Response

This understanding of the value of investing in women and girls has shaped Opportunity's own strategies, tools and programs. Because we know that empowered women are key to ending extreme poverty, Opportunity is focused on providing tools and training that equip and empower women to thrive.

We make it possible for more girls to go to-and stay in-school through our Education Finance initiatives.

We provide equal access to farming inputs and agricultural tools through our Agriculture Finance program.

We connect women who have been excluded from the formal economy to savings accounts and small loans through Trust Groups, which provide them with a network of support to earn a stable income and improve their livelihoods.

We leverage and increase access to technology so that even the most rural women can be a part of the global economy

We promote women's health through education and partnerships with community health organizations, helping women and their babies live healthy, fulfilling lives.

Ultimately, we include women whose lives have been defined by exclusion. We provide access to the formal economy, to much needed tools and training and to financial services and education. And in so doing, we connect women to the world around them, giving them opportunities that were previously unimaginable. Because we know that women, when empowered, will change the world.

Empowered Women: The Secret Weapon

Promoting gender equality is not only women's responsibility - it's the responsibility of all of us."Former UN Secretary Kofi Annan

And so it appears that the Sustainable Development Goals are onto something. Not only because women are people and deserve equal rights for that simple fact alone, but also because investing in and empowering women unlocks a flood of potential for the whole world. Women are a secret weapon in the fight against global poverty. They are an often-untapped resource that has the potential to improve livelihoods, economic outputs, productivity, and human life itself.

As former UN Secretary Kofi Annan famously said, "Promoting gender equality is not only women's responsibility - it's the responsibility of all of us."

No wonder we are all so excited about empowering women: they are one of the most powerful tools we have.
Allison is a professional storyteller, freelance writer, and avid traveler. She spent the last year backpacking around the world meeting and interviewing incredible people with remarkable stories, eating amazing food, and climbing very scary mountains. Now, she lives in Chicago where she runs a small business helping nonprofit organizations identify, create, and share their stories, equipping them to better do the work they were born to do. When she's not working, you can usually find her reading a book, planning her next trip, or baking the best cookies on the planet.
Keep Reading our Sustainable Development Goal Series
Feeding the Future: Ending Global Hunger
The majority of those struggling with hunger live in rural regions where they depend upon agriculture to survive. Because of the critical role hunger and nutrition play in both the lives and livelihoods of those living in poverty, it is no surprise that Sustainable Development Goal 2 addresses this critical topic: "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture."

¹ http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/5_Why-it-Matters_GenderEquality_2p.pdf
² http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/5_Why-it-Matters_GenderEquality_2p.pdf
³ https://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/downloads/worldswomen2015_report.pdf
⁴ https://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/downloads/worldswomen2015_report.pdf
⁵ http://www.womenseconomicempowerment.org/assets/reports/UNWomen%20Full%20Report.pdf
⁶United Nations, 2016.
⁷United Nations, 2016.
⁸United Nations, 2016.
⁹United Nations, 2016.
¹⁰ FAO, 2011. "Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development"
¹¹ FAO, 2011.
¹² Half the Sky Fast Facts, http://www.halftheskymovement.org/page/-/fastfacts.pdf
¹³UNESCO, 2013. "Education Transforms Lives"
¹⁴Half the Sky Fast Facts
¹⁵ ONE, 2016. https://www.one.org/us/2015/02/26/why-women-and-girls-are-the-secret-weapon-in-ending-poverty/
¹⁶Half the Sky Fast Facts
¹⁷UNESCO, 2013
¹⁸Half the Sky Fast Facts
¹⁹UNESCO, 2013
²⁰Gender Equality, Why it Matters, 2016.
²¹Half the Sky Fast Facts
²²UNESCO, 2013.
²³ Women's World Banking, 2015. "Women's Financial Inclusion: A Driver for Global Growth." http://www.womensworldbanking.org/publications/womens-financial-inclusion-driver-global-growth/
²⁴Half the Sky Fast Facts
²⁵ Gates Annual Letter, 2017. https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter
²⁶Half the Sky Fast Facts
²⁷Clinton Global Initiative.
²⁸ Commission on the Status of Women, 2005. http://www.un.org/press/en/2005/sgsm9738.doc.htm

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Empowered Women Make a Difference and Change the World

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Exploring the Sustainable Development Goals March 23, 2017 // by Allison Kooser The question is: why? | The Need is Great | The Impact is Significant | The Ripple Effect Changes the World | Opportunity's Response | Empowered Women: The Secret Weapon For those of us working in and supporting international development initiatives, we know that investing in and empowering women and girls is popular and ubiquitous.

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One day wages

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Educating girls is vital to human development and improving quality of life across the globe. It has been shown that every year of secondary school increases a girl's future earning power by 20 percent. Girls are more likely to reinvest in their families and communities, boosting economies and increasing opportunities for everyone. Sadly, 32 million girls of lower secondary school age are not enrolled in school due to unaffordable school fees, forced child marriage, lack of sanitary products when they reach puberty, and many other barriers. Empowering girls is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty, and you can work with us in this vital goal.

Why empower girls?

Girls' empowerment is integral to global development. We believe the best way to empower women is through improved access to high quality education. Educated girls are less likely to marry early and against their will, less likely to die in childbirth, and more likely to send their children to school. In fact, if all girls in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia had a secondary education, child marriage would fall by 64 percent, from almost 2.9 million to just over 1 million.

Increasing girls' education contributes to higher economic growth for entire communities through boosting girls' earning power. For every year of secondary education that a girl receives, her wages will increase up to 25 percent. We believe that women must receive opportunities in education and in the workforce of equal quality and value to men.

Our Impact

We have worked in 3 countries and provided over 10,000 girls access to secondary education. In Afghanistan, our partnership with Sahar provided transportation for 30 young women to attend a Teacher Training Center. We also aim to limit the practical barriers that keep girls out of school. One way we achieve this is through providing girls access to sanitary and hygiene products, so that they are not forced to skip a week of school each month. With your help we can continue to support projects that recognize the need for a holistic approach to empowering girls through education, training, and support.

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Educating girls is vital to human development and improving quality of life across the globe. It has been shown that every year of secondary school increases a girl's future earning power by 20 percent. Girls are more likely to reinvest in their families and communities, boosting economies and increasing opportunities for everyone.

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#GirlsCount - Help girls around the world get the education they deserve | ONE.org

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130 million girls across the globe are denied an education. So we're asking the world to count them, one by one, to urge our political leaders to help get them into school.

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United Nations

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Factslides

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Factslides a high traffic content website (over 1 million visits / month) that takes relevant and complex information from NGOs, think tanks, journals, specialized magazines and media and converts it into colorful and animated slideshows that are easy and fun to read, making the information accessible to students, teachers and curious minds for fun, research, lesson planning, and homework.

Factslides is dedicated to provide well-sourced and verified information that will help young people access the information and critical thinking skills they need to make our world a better place.

Launched in July, 2013, it has shown its facts over 1000 million times, and was selected among the Top 100 websites of 2013 by the prestigious PC Magazine, and as one of the 99 Sites That Every Professional Should Know About by BusinessInsider. It was also featured in sites such as The Awesomer, Design Taxi, I-Am-Bored.com, Neatorama, and DONG, a YouTube show with over a million subscribers.

How do I know your facts are credible? All facts are verified and well sourced. The source URL is located at the bottom of each fact.

Can I use your facts on my site / video / whatever? You sure can. Just be sure to include a link back to FACTSlides.com as your source.

I found a mistake or have a suggestion! What should I do? Contact us!

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15 Facts about Women's Rights ←FACTSlides→

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Factslides a high traffic content website (over 1 million visits / month) that takes relevant and complex information from NGOs, think tanks, journals, specialized magazines and media and converts it into colorful and animated slideshows that are easy and fun to read, making the information accessible to students, teachers and curious minds for fun, research, lesson planning, and homework.

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You tube

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You tube

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You tube

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You tube

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Tedx talkshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc

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We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TEDxEuston

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I am a girl

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Join the global movement for girls' rights

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Securing the rights of girls and young women is the critical social justice issue of our time.

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Ways to help

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Because every child needs a childhood | Sponsor a Child

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Global fund for women

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Take action by adding your name and commit to stand up for the global issues of women's rights that are most important to you at this critical moment. Sign on to help us get to the world we want: a world where women have full control over their bodies, where all girls have equal access to a quality education; a world where women are paid the same amount for the same work; a world where women human rights defenders are not arrested or killed for raising their voices; a world where women and girls are not systematically raped during times of war.

Commit to #BuildMovementsNotWalls to work toward the reality we want and to advance equality while resisting rollbacks in human rights. Make sure we enter this new era with a strong and concerted message that global women's rights are inalienable, and we will stand behind them like never before.
ADD YOUR NAME NOW
We are people from all around the globe committed to advancing women's human rights. We are also women in the United States who have seen and heard government leaders commit to ideas and policies that endanger our rights, our bodies, and our planet. We are allies and activists committed to protecting human rights and dignity. All of us, together, are following the words and policies of the new U.S. administration. We are ready and prepared to advocate for progress on women's rights and to take action when those rights are threatened-anywhere in the world.
Together, we have a collective power that is formidable; together our voices cannot be silenced.
U.S. policies and leadership directly influence policies and decisions globally, and we know that it is women who are often most acutely impacted-for better or for worse. For example, we know that U.S. policies can directly block women's access to reproductive health and rights. The 'global gag rule' prohibited U.S. foreign aid to any organization that delivers abortion services, but was repealed by President Obama. Before the law's repeal, there was a massive chilling effect on many global efforts for reproductive health-and it has been reinstated and expanded by the new administration, with frightening potential for women's access to reliable healthcare. Conversely, the U.S. State Department's leadership on issues such as ending child marriage has been a positive global force for advancing women's rights. The U.S.'s stance on human rights is critical to protecting women's rights all over the world-especially in armed conflict and political turmoil as it is in such scenarios that sexual violence escalates and women's needs and voices are often silenced.

We will voice our opinions on key decisions and announcements, and we will continue to build unstoppable movements to advance equality and resist rollbacks in women's rights.

I'm adding my name here to stand in solidarity with women and allies in the United States and around the globe. I commit to remaining vigilant over the next four years and adding my voice, my resources, and my energy to advance women's rights and human rights globally.

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Send your message on global women's rights

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Take action by adding your name and commit to stand up for the global issues of women's rights that are most important to you at this critical moment.

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Right to education

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Today more girls than ever go to school. However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, poverty, and disability, in the equal enjoyment of the right to quality education. This includes barriers, at all levels, to access quality education and within education systems, institutions, and classrooms, such as, amongst others:

The international community has recognised the equal right to quality education of everyone and committed to achieving gender equality in all fields, including education, through their acceptance of international human rights law. This means that states have legal obligations to remove all discriminatory barriers, whether they exist in law or in everyday life, and to undertake positive measures to bring about equality, including in access of, within, and through education.

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Today more girls than ever go to school. However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, poverty, and disability, in the equal enjoyment of the right to quality education.

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Human rights watch

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Susanné Bergsten Park Senior Coordinator, Women’s Rights Division

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Despite great strides made by the international women’s rights movement over many years, women and girls around the world are still married as children or trafficked into forced labor and sex slavery. They are refused access to education and political participation, and some are trapped in conflicts…

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MANDRE

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Solution

With you by our side, MADRE and our local grassroots partners support struggling women farmers. We install clean water tanks in communities. And we train women farmers in ways to adapt to climate change and to survive drought.

We also bring women like Hellen and Sylvia together for community exchanges. Your generosity helps give them an opportunity to visit each other, share ideas on how to raise money for their families, and learn new strategies to build peace together.

In addition to farming fruits and vegetables, Hellen started a poultry farm.

When she needs extra money, she sells her chickens in the market. It helps her to put food on her table, pay school fees, and care for her children - and your support with equipment for her farm helped make it possible.

One short month later, Sylvia's farm is up and running back in Ololulunga!

Already, she's earned extra money by selling eggs in the local market and has raised enough money to pay for her children's school fees!

Initiative

Help women fight climate change. Our actions to confront climate change today will decide the futures of our planet and of generations to come. You can join the women leading the way.

Partner

The Indigenous Information Network (IIN) is a women-led organization that connects Indigenous Peoples, sustains their communities and strengthens their demands for human rights.

Issue

Climate change is a global crisis that threatens the survival of humanity. While it affects us all, poor and rural women are hardest hit by food shortages, droughts, floods and disease linked to climate change. But they are more than victims.

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Hellen and Sylvia are two mothers from Kenya. At first, they were nervous, and a little scared, to meet each other. They belong to different Indigenous Peoples, whose communities are often pitted against each other, sometimes violently. Often, it's drought and food scarcity that push communities to fight each other for access to what little resources exist.

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United world schools

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Here's a message from UWS on why promoting girls' education in communities beyond the reach of mainstream society is so vital.

As Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban on her way to school in 2012, wrote, "One child, one teacher, one book, one pen, can change the world." We believe a more gender-equal world starts with education.

UWS plays a part in a worldwide movement calling for an end to global educational inequality. To achieve this, the education of girls needs to be prioritised by organisations and valued by communities, as Julia Gillard highlighted in 2014:

"It is 2014, and nearly 15 percent of women worldwide cannot read or write. That's nearly 500 million women. But this is not just a problem for them. It's a problem for all of us. Because whether a girl, boy, man or woman, we all live in the same world, and that world needs all the brain power, creativity and productivity it can get."

In teaching the unreached, UWS aims to deliver educational opportunity to such girls. By investing in girls' education, UWS helps young women to grow up as active citizens in their communities, creating better prospects for their families and futures. We work in areas where child marriage is common, and where girls have children at a young age. Educating girls reduces their risk of child marriage, trafficking and exploitation, and gives them a pathway to educational and vocational opportunities that can lift them and their families out of poverty.

Do you believe that education should mean education for all? We'd love it if you'd join us.

The Girls of Ratanakiri
Milly, of The Red Maids' School, Bristol, is currently working on UWS projects in Cambodia. Here she writes about her experience of UWS and how we help to develop girls through education. Follow Milly's work on her tumblr.
My belief in the importance of gender equality in education stems, to some extent, from the fact that the secondary school I have just left is an all-girls school, as well as being a strong partner school to UWS. Working with UWS has proved to me that the contrast between my educational experience and the daily lives of the women of Ratanakiri cannot be understated. We must recognise that there is still a long way to go in narrowing this global divide.

Consider a young woman living in a rural community in the Ratanakiri jungle. She's illiterate. So is her husband. She doesn't even speak the national language. What she has got are other things to think about. Education? She's got three kids to feed.

These communities are farm based, so they need farm hands. When it rains, the classrooms are half-empty and the fields are full, with all small hands on deck for the rice planting. Inevitably, the role of the female is to produce farm hands. From the age she can walk, she takes over the care of the younger sibling strapped to her back. With puberty comes marriage and, a couple of years later, children of her own. And so it begins again. Where, in this cycle, is there time for education?

In working towards our aim, UWS holds a responsibility to each of these young girls; through the schools we build, we put a break in this cycle. By educating girls and boys as equals, we introduce the idea that, perhaps, having children young is not so positive for personal and community development.

UWS also holds a responsibility to the mothers of the children we teach. These mothers are central to the communities we work in, which each have their own language and way of life. A village may be run by a male chief, but to quote UWS founder Chris Howarth, 'once you get the mothers on side, you're good to go'. In my experience of running projects with UWS, each young mother crouching at the sidelines, watching her children learn with interest in her eyes, is a triumph.

In the long-term, the future of these communities depends on literacy. UWS believes that women play a key role in this future. Already, for example, we have found that some village women are particularly adept in handling finances. As we help these communities face the 21st century challenges already upon them, please spare a thought for the potential of the young girls we work with. In order to reach our aim of education for all, we must invest in girls.

We already see it in Britain. Now let's see it in Ratanakiri and beyond.

A girl's first day at a UWS school in Cambodia

UWS needs you!

UWS depends on the kind support of friends and partners and we would love it if you'd join us in our mission to teach the unreached.

If you're interested in supporting our work, please get in touch via [email protected] .

For more information on school partnership see Partner your school, if you are a company looking to sponsor a UWS school see Partner your organisation, or you can make a donation to support our work.
See the full gallery here

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Here's a message from UWS on why promoting girls' education in communities beyond the reach of mainstream society is so vital. As Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban on her way to school in 2012, wrote, "One child, one teacher, one book, one pen, can change the world."

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NBC news

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Two decades after the Spice Girls stormed onto the international pop music scene with their hit single "Wannabe," the girl power anthem is being used to fight for women's rights worldwide.

A remake of the 1996 smash hit video released Tuesday takes a tour around the globe in support of charity The Global Goals' #WhatIReallyReallyWant campaign.

Packed with nods to 1990s dance moves and fashion statements, the video features women and girls cavorting through schools, streets and classrooms around the world while highlighting issues like violence against women, underage marriage and equal pay for equal work.

"What do you really really want for girls and women?" the video asks, and encourages viewers to share and "make the noise" to get the message out to world leaders.

Former Spice Girls Victoria Beckham and Melanie Chisholm endorsed the slick production.

"20 years on - Girl Power being used to empower a new generation. I'm so proud of The Global Goals," Beckham wrote on her Facebook page when she shared the video, which got 28 million views in less than 24 hours.

Actresses Emma Watson also threw her weight behind the campaign.

"In 2015 world leaders promised to put girls and women first when they signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, fix climate change and tackle inequalities," the charity said in a statement. "Girls and women are disproportionately affected by these challenges and are key to building resilient communities to withstand them."

The video was shared almost 17,000 times off of The Global Goals Facebook page and garnered more than 975,000 views by early Wednesday.

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‪#‎WhatIReallyReallyWant: Spice Girls Hit Gets Remake With a Message

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Two decades after the Spice Girls stormed onto the international pop music scene with their hit single "Wannabe," the girl power anthem is being used to fight for women's rights worldwide. A remake of the 1996 smash hit video released Tuesday takes a tour around the globe in support of charity The Global Goals' #WhatIReallyReallyWant campaign.

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buildOn

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For millions of children in developing countries, another missed school year is another missed opportunity to lift themselves out of the cycle of illiteracy and poverty. buildOn is breaking this cycle by breaking ground on a new school every three days in seven developing countries. More than 100,000 children, parents and grandparents attend 900+ buildOn constructed schools every day, including equal numbers of female and male students. Here's why creating these educational opportunities is so important:
buildOn is raising awareness of the Global Education Crisis and sharing stories of the lives of students we've empowered. We need your help to spread our message and educate more students:

Share this infographic using the buttons at the bottom of this page.

Follow buildOn on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We're using social media to raise awareness of the education crisis and our work to end it.

Once you've followed buildOn on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, share our messages with your friends and family to help raise awareness.

Donate to support buildOn students. Any amount helps to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations.

Source Information:
Posted September 25, 2014 by Brandon Worth

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Infographic: The Global Education Crisis

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Back to school season is coming to a close, and students in the U.S. and around the world are settling in for another year of learning. But, for millions of children in developing countries, this school year is another missed opportunity to lift themselves out of the cycle of illiteracy and poverty.

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BuildOn

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"No one in my family ever made it to graduation. Not my mother, my father, grandmother, grandfather, my older brother. Nobody."
As he finishes his senior year at Central High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Jamil Harp is determined to become the first in his family to step onto the graduation stage to receive his diploma. He credits this determination to succeed to his experience serving with buildOn, while seeing his mother struggle without a high school degree.

"I had my first child at 17," Jamil's mother, Millie, says. "I had no one to watch him, so I left school to care for him. I got my own apartment at 18 and entered the workforce... I've been unemployed for four years and nervous about re-entering the workforce without a high school education. Jamil was my shining light. He learned the value of education through his involvement in buildOn and he pushed me to give myself a second chance."
When Jamil started serving with buildOn, his mom was skeptical but soon started seeing positive change in her son.
But Jamil didn't always see himself the 'shining light' his mom sees today. As he began high school he took his education for granted and was dangerously close to following in his family members' footsteps.

"I was never in class, so there is no way I would have ever volunteered (or graduated)," Jamil admits. "In 10th grade a friend dragged me along to a buildOn program meeting and I liked it, so I signed up for the service project happening that Saturday. When I showed up to service I knew that I fit really well there. I realized I had always been capable of doing positive things like volunteering, but I never had anyone to push me to do that. I've always been a leader, and once I was in buildOn, an environment where my voice was being heard, it made me speak louder and louder, realizing what I was capable of."

But Millie was skeptical and needed some convincing. "I wasn't sure what he was getting into at first," she says. "I was his buildOn taxi driver, shuttling him and other students back and forth to service projects. I saw Jamil changing for the better."

"When you go to service and you are able to put a smile on someone else's face, you realize how much you are capable of doing." - Millie Harp

Curious about what her son was getting into, Millie decided to see for herself by joining Jamil at buildOn service projects. It didn't take long for her to get hooked, too. "buildOn wakes something up in these kids," she says. "When you go to service and you are able to put a smile on someone else's face, you realize how much you are capable of doing," Millie says.

She began to attend any service project she could, her favorites being community clothing drives and food pantries. Millie even got Jamil's younger siblings involved. "Jamil began to spend a lot of time out of the house serving others," she says. "I wanted them to see first hand what their brother is doing for our community. When they understand what Jamil stands for, it becomes a part of who they are as well."

Seeing the impact buildOn was having on Jamil, Millie and Jamil's siblings started joining buildOn service projects.

Millie knew buildOn had truly changed her son one day in 2015 when he told her about a new opportunity to serve. "I knew Jamil had become a different person when he asked to go on Trek to Malawi with buildOn. Yes, that was my hardest moment, allowing him to travel to Africa to build a school," she confesses, though she ultimately agreed to let Jamil go, and is extremely happy for the knowledge and experiences he gained.

During his Trek for Knowledge, Jamil and other buildOn students lived with and served alongside a local community in one of the world's economically poorest countries. The students and villagers worked tirelessly to lay the foundation for a primary school that today is bringing education to hundreds of students in a country with one of the world's lowest percentages of the population who can read and write. It was an eye-opening experience that would change Jamil's life.

"I realized what an impact the buildOn primary school would have on their village and when I returned home to Connecticut I bluntly saw the value of education." - Jamil Harp

"My host family was so kind and generous to me," Jamil reflects. "I learned that my host mother had left school after third grade and my host father had left school after fourth grade. My host sister also dropped out of primary school because of the long distance she had to walk daily to attend school. I asked my host mother if she would re-enroll in school if given the opportunity. She began to cry and told me yes, she would love to re-enroll in school. Her tears triggered my tears and soon we were crying and hugging and talking about our futures. I realized what an impact the buildOn primary school would have on their village and when I returned home to Connecticut I bluntly saw the value of education... I realized what was important in life, and what can never be taken away from you: your education."

Jamil shows off the t-shirt he earned by helping to build a school in Malawi, an experience that changed his (and his mother's) life.

When Jamil returned from Malawi, he knew he didn't just want to graduate high school, he wanted to go to college, too. He got to work filling out applications and realized the time was also right for his mother to further her education.

"While I was going through the college application process we talked a lot about (my mom's) future," Jamil says. "We discussed that going back to school could change her life. She felt too old and too burdened to go back to school, and I told her about a 75-year-old woman I met in Malawi who had just learned how to write her name through buildOn's Adult Literacy Program. I said if a 75-year-old woman could go back to school, anyone can. I knew that she wanted this for herself, so I pushed her towards it."

Inspired and encouraged by her son, Millie enrolled in a local GED program for women through Mercy Learning Center and she became enamored with learning. "The passion of the teachers and other students affected me greatly," she says. "I knew they all had a story and we were all there for the same purpose: to learn. We were serious about our education."

Is Jamil disappointed his mother beat him to the finish line for receiving a high school diploma? "Are you kidding?! I'm so proud of her, I'm happy she beat me to it!" he exclaims, his voice brimming with pride and excitement.

Millie is furthering her education as well, and is waiting on grants to help pay for her education expenses. "We'll both be going to college this fall," she says, as proud smile appears on her face.

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Jamil & Millie: Strengthening Family Through Service and Education

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When Jamil Harp started spending most of his spare time with buildOn, his mother wasn't sure what her son was getting into. When she decided to see for herself, Millie Harp found that service and education had the power to change both of their lives for the better.

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21 Facts You Never Knew About International Gender Inequality

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21 Facts You Never Knew About International Gender Inequality

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MAKERS

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21 Facts About Gender Inequality You Need To Know Now

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21 Facts About Gender Inequality You Need To Know Now

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Do you feel that? That's the cultural shift that's happening because women are creating modern-day movements towards real change now. At MAKERS, we are committed to highlighting the changeMAKERS who are leading the charge towards ending sexual harassment across all industries , providing resources for women in war-torn countries or teaching girls to code and more.

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7 appalling facts that prove we need gender equality now

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7 appalling facts that prove we need gender equality now

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Global Citizen

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13 Shocking Facts About Gender Inequality Around the World

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Women and girls are facing some of the worst effects of global crises, from living in extreme poverty, to experiencing the worst of war.

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Global Citizen

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Every person, everywhere, should have an equal chance to live up to their full potential.

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UNFPA

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Empowering women and girls

Despite many international agreements affirming their human rights, women and girls are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. They have less access to property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic abuse and other forms of violence.

Gender equality will be achieved only when women and men enjoy the same opportunities, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. This means sharing equally in the distribution of power and influence, and having equal opportunities for financial independence, education and realizing their personal ambitions.

Gender equality demands the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. When women are empowered, whole families benefit, and these benefits often have a ripple effect on future generations.

Gender equality benefits not only women, but their families and communities as well. A Hmong woman in the village of Sin Chai, Viet Nam. ©UN Photo/Kibae Park

Taking action

The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined. They are socially determined, changing and changeable. And while they may be justified as being required by culture or religion, these roles vary widely by locality and evolve over time. Efforts to promote women's empowerment should ensure cultural considerations are respected while women's and girls' rights are upheld.

Effectively promoting gender equality also requires recognizing that women are diverse in the roles they play, as well as in age, social status, ability, geographic location and educational attainment. The fabric of their lives and the choices available to them vary widely.

UNFPA aims to respond to the needs of the most marginalized and vulnerable - including adolescent girls, people living with disabilities, indigenous peoples, migrants, women refugees, female heads of households and those living in extreme poverty. In 2017, UNFPA supported gender equality-related legislation, policy reform and development in countries around the world.

One critical, and often overlooked, requirement for promoting gender equality is the collection of sex- and age-disaggregated data, which helps reveal where progress has taken place and where it is flagging. UNFPA works with countries to build capacity for data gathering and analysis.

Key issues

Experience has shown that addressing gender equality and women's empowerment requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policy-making. Key issues include:

Reproductive health: The ability of women to control their own fertility is fundamental to women's empowerment and equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life. Protecting and promoting her reproductive rights - including the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of her children - is essential to ensuring her freedom to participate more fully and equally in society.

In addition, for both physiological and social reasons, women are more vulnerable than men to reproductive health problems. Collectively, complications of pregnancy or childbirth are the number two killer of women of reproductive age. Failure to provide information, services and conditions to help women protect their reproductive health constitutes gender-based discrimination and is a violation of women's rights to health and life.

Economic empowerment: Six out of 10 of the world's poorest people are women. Economic disparities persist partly because much of the unpaid work within families and communities falls on the shoulders of women, and because women continue to face discrimination in the economic sphere.

Educational empowerment: About two thirds of the world's illiterate adults are women. Lack of an education severely restricts a woman's access to information and opportunities. Conversely, increasing women's and girls' educational attainment benefits both individuals and future generations. Higher levels of women's education are strongly associated with lower infant mortality and lower fertility, as well as better outcomes for their children.

Political empowerment: Gender equality cannot be achieved without the backing and enforcement of institutions. But too many social and legal institutions still do not guarantee women equality in basic legal and human rights, in access to or control of resources, in employment or earnings, or in social or political participation. And men continue to occupy most positions of political and legal authority; globally, only 24 per cent of parliamentarians are women. Laws against domestic violence are often not enforced on behalf of women.
Last updated 10 May 2018.

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Gender equality is a human right. Women are entitled to live with dignity and with freedom from want and from fear. Gender equality is also a precondition for advancing development and reducing poverty: Empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of whole families and communities, and they improve prospects for the next generation.

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Forbes

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We need gender equity now. Those are words often uttered in social justice circles, and recently, across a number of headlines. What does that mean? More broadly, how is gender equity different than gender equality?

If gender equality is the end, gender equity is the means.

Gender equality "does not mean that women and men will become the same, but that women's and men's rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female."

Gender equity means fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs. This may include equal treatment or treatment that is different, but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations, and opportunities.

When we talk about opportunity, we're talking about ensuring opportunity is not limited simply on the basis of gender. We are talking about correcting for gender biases so that economic outcomes improve for all.

Why do we need equity?

Let's start at the beginning. In no country are women in equal. In fact, the World Economic Forum projects it will take 170 years to reach gender equality globally, and 158 years in North America. That means it will take five more generations for us to see gender equality - or my great, great, great, great, grandchildren. That's not only bad news for our daughters - it's bad news for our sons because gender equality impacts the economic pie for all.

Many of the measures concerning gender equality interplay with the economyand more specifically, the workforce.

Here's the current state:

In addition to women attaining 57% of bachelor degrees and above in 2015(that trajectory is projected to continue), they are also the majority of university students in nearly 100 countries. Women are an educated cohort, particularly in the U.S., but they are not making it up the talent pipeline. Why not? Gender bias is causing a leaky pipeline.

How does equity lead to equality?

If gender equity is about fairness, then what we are talking about here is making up for the gap between gender bias and reality. How can we hack the system to give women an equitable shot?

Overall, gender mainstreaming is a very useful strategy. Why? It overlays the gender lens across any action, policy and more. Let's take an example:

Raising the social security retirement agein the U.S.

Seemingly, this affects women and men equally. Not the case. Not only do women have lower social security benefits, they also live longer, and find it harder to get a job in their later years due to age and gender bias. Raising the social security age disproportionately adversely affects women. If we understood that data, we might make different decisions so that retired women aren't twice as likely to live in poverty.

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We need gender equity now. Those are words often uttered in social justice circles, and recently, across a number of headlines. What does that mean? More broadly, how is gender equity different than gender equality?

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The Hamilton Spectator

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Feminism has become a fundamentally flawed construct. The original purpose of the feminist movement was to instate equal legal rights for women, but as often happens with social movements, momentum...

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The International Women's Health Coalition

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The International Women's Health Coalition

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Attorney-General's Department

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Pictures

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More than 60 million girls around the world aren't in school, simply because they were born a girl. Put on a school dress and change this! Whatever you're doing, Do It In A Dress!

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Educate a girl, change the world

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UNICEF: Educate Girls.  Change The World.

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115 Million children in the world do not go to school. Most of them are girls. Think about it. Find out why. United Nations Girls Education Initiative www.unicef.org www.ungei.org

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Feminist.com is an online community and nonprofit organization fostering awareness, education and activism.

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TED.com

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A collection of TED Talks (and more) on the topic of Feminism.

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Good reads

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3067 quotes have been tagged as feminism: Brigham Young: 'You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.', Bette Da...

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Feminists treat men badly. It’s bad for feminism.

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Feminists treat men badly. It’s bad for feminism.

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The Washington post

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Feminist male-bashing has come to sound like a cliche - a misogynist caricature. Feminism, its loudest proponents vow, is about fighting for equality. The man-hating label is either a smear or a misunderstanding.

Yet a lot of feminist rhetoric today does cross the line from attacks on sexism into attacks on men, with a strong focus on personal behavior: the way they talk, the way they approach relationships, even the way they sit on public transit. Male faults are stated as sweeping condemnations; objecting to such generalizations is taken as a sign of complicity. Meanwhile, similar indictments of women would be considered grossly misogynistic.

This gender antagonism does nothing to advance the unfinished business of equality. If anything, the fixation on men behaving badly is a distraction from more fundamental issues, such as changes in the workplace to promote work-life balance. What's more, male-bashing not only sours many men - and quite a few women - on feminism. It often drives them into Internet subcultures where critiques of feminism mix with hostility toward women.

* * *

To some extent, the challenge to men and male power has always been inherent in feminism, from the time the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments catalogued the grievances of "woman" against "man." However, these grievances were directed more at institutions than at individuals. In " The Feminine Mystique," which sparked the great feminist revival of the 1960s, Betty Friedan saw men not as villains but as fellow victims burdened by societal pressures and by the expectations of their wives, who depended on them for both livelihood and identity.

That began to change in the 1970s with the rise of radical feminism. This movement, with its slogan, "The personal is political," brought a wave of female anger at men's collective and individual transgressions. Authors like Andrea Dworkin and Marilyn French depicted ordinary men as patriarchy's brutal foot soldiers.

This tendency has reached a troubling new peak, as radical feminist theories that view modern Western civilization as a patriarchy have migrated from academic and activist fringes into mainstream conversation. One reason for this trend is social media, with its instant amplification of personal narratives and its addiction to outrage. We live in a time when jerky male attempts at cyber-flirting can be collected on a blog called Straight White Boys Texting (which carries a disclaimer that prejudice against white males is not racist or sexist, since it is not directed at the oppressed) and then deplored in an article titled "Dear Men: This Is Why Women Have Every Right To Be Disgusted With Us."

Whatever the reasons for the current cycle of misandry - yes, that's a word, derided but also adopted for ironic use by many feminists - its existence is quite real. Consider, for example, the number of neologisms that use "man" as a derogatory prefix and that have entered everyday media language: " mansplaining," "manspreading" and " manterrupting." Are these primarily male behaviors that justify the gender-specific terms? Not necessarily: The study that is cited as evidence of excessive male interruption of women actually found that the most frequent interrupting is female-on-female ("femterrupting"?).

Sitting with legs apart may be a guy thing, but there is plenty of visual documentation of women hogging extra space on public transit with purses, shopping bags and feet on seats. As for "mansplaining," these days it seems to mean little more than a man making an argument a woman dislikes. Slate correspondent Dahlia Lithwick has admitted using the term to "dismiss anything said by men" in debates about Hillary Clinton. And the day after Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination, political analyst David Axelrod was slammed as a " mansplainer " on Twitter for his observation that it's a measure of our country's "great progress" that "many younger women find the nomination of a woman unremarkable."

Men who gripe about their ex-girlfriends and advise other men to avoid relationships with women are generally relegated to the seedy underbelly of the Internet - various forums and websites in the " manosphere," recently chronicled by Stephen Marche in the Guardian. Yet a leading voice of the new feminist generation, British writer Laurie Penny, can use her column in the New Statesman to decry ex-boyfriends who "turned mean or walked away" and to urge straight young women to stay single instead of "wasting years in succession on lacklustre, unappreciative, boring child-men."

Feminist commentary routinely puts the nastiest possible spin on male behavior and motives. Consider the backlash against the concept of the "friend zone," or being relegated to "friends-only" status when seeking a romantic relationship - usually, though not exclusively, in reference to men being "friend zoned" by women. Since the term has a clear negative connotation, feminist critics say it reflects the assumption that a man is owed sex as a reward for treating a woman well. Yet it's at least as likely that, as feminist writer Rachel Hills argued in a rare dissent in the Atlantic, the lament of the "friend zoned" is about "loneliness and romantic frustration," not sexual entitlement.

Things have gotten to a point where casual low-level male-bashing is a constant white noise in the hip progressive online media. Take a recent piece on Broadly, the women's section of Vice, titled, "Men Are Creepy, New Study Confirms" - promoted with a Vice Facebook post that said: "Are you a man? You're probably a creep." The actual study found something very different: that both men and women overwhelmingly think someone described as "creepy" is more likely to be male. If a study had found that a negative trait was widely associated with women (or gays or Muslims), surely this would have been reported as deplorable stereotyping, not confirmation of reality.

Meanwhile, men can get raked over the (virtual) coals for voicing even the mildest unpopular opinion on something feminism-related. Just recently, YouTube film reviewer James Rolfe, who goes by "Angry Video Game Nerd," was roundly vilified as a misogynistic "man-baby" in social media and the online press after announcing that he would not watch the female-led "Ghostbusters" remake because of what he felt was its failure to acknowledge the original franchise.

* * *

This matters, and not just because it can make men less sympathetic to the problems women face. At a time when we constantly hear that womanpower is triumphant and " the end of men" - or at least of traditional manhood - is nigh, men face some real problems of their own. Women are now earning about 60 percent of college degrees; male college enrollment after high school has stalled at 61 percent since 1994, even as female enrollment has risen from 63 percent to 71 percent. Predominantly male blue-collar jobs are on the decline, and the rise of single motherhood has left many men disconnected from family life. The old model of marriage and fatherhood has been declared obsolete, but new ideals remain elusive.

Perhaps mocking and berating men is not the way to show that the feminist revolution is about equality and that they have a stake in the new game. The message that feminism can help men, too - by placing equal value on their role as parents or by encouraging better mental health care and reducing male suicide - is undercut by gender warriors like Australian pundit Clementine Ford, whose " ironic misandry" often seems entirely non-ironic and who has angrily insisted that feminism stands only for women. Gibes about "male tears" - for instance, on a T-shirt sported by writer Jessica Valenti in a photo taunting her detractors - seem particularly unfortunate if feminists are serious about challenging the stereotype of the stoic, pain-suppressing male. Dismissing concerns about wrongful accusations of rape with a snarky " What about the menz" is not a great way to show that women's liberation does not infringe on men's civil rights. And telling men that their proper role in the movement for gender equality is to listen to women and patiently endure anti-male slams is not the best way to win support.

Valenti and others argue that man-hating cannot do any real damage because men have the power and privilege. Few would deny the historical reality of male dominance. But today, when men can lose their jobs because of sexist missteps and be expelled from college over allegations of sexual misconduct, that's a blinkered view, particularly since the war on male sins can often target individuals' trivial transgressions. Take the media shaming of former "Harry Potter" podcaster Benjamin Schoen, pilloried for some mildly obnoxious tweets (and then an insufficiently gracious email apology) to a woman who had blocked him on Facebook after an attempt at flirting. While sexist verbal abuse toward women online is widely deplored, there is little sympathy for men who are attacked as misogynists, mocked as "man-babies" or " angry virgins," or even smeared as sexual predators in Internet disputes.

We are headed into an election with what is likely to be a nearly unprecedented gender gap among voters. To some extent, these numbers reflect policy differences. Yet it is not too far-fetched to see the pro-Donald Trump sentiment as fueled, at least in part, by a backlash against feminism. And while some of this backlash may be of the old-fashioned "put women in their place" variety, there is little doubt that for the younger generation, the perception of feminism as extremist and anti-male plays a role, too.

This theme emerged in Conor Friedersdorf's recent interview in the Atlantic with a Trump supporter, a college-educated, 22-year-old resident of San Francisco who considers himself a feminist and expects his career to take a back seat to that of his higher-earning fiancee - but who also complains about being "shamed" as a white man and voices concern about false accusations of rape.

As this campaign shows, our fractured culture is badly in need of healing - from the gender wars as well as other divisions. To be a part of this healing, feminism must include men, not just as supportive allies but as partners, with an equal voice and equal humanity.

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Feminists treat men badly. It's bad for feminism.

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Feminist male-bashing has come to sound like a cliche - a misogynist caricature. Feminism, its loudest proponents vow, is about fighting for equality. The man-hating label is either a smear or a misunderstanding.

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Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men

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Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men

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Time

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"Gender equality is your issue too." That was the message to men from Emma Watson, Harry Potter star and now United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador, in her widely hailed U.N. speech earlier this week announcing a new feminist campaign with a "formal invitation" to male allies to join. Noting that men suffer from sexism in their own ways, Watson asked, "How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?" Truer words were never spoken. Too bad they are belied by the campaign itself, which is called " HeForShe " and asks men to pledge to "take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls" but says nothing about problems affecting men and boys.

Watson clearly believes that feminism - which, she stressed, is about equality and not bashing men - will also solve men's problems. But, unfortunately, feminism in its present form has too often ignored sexist biases against males, and sometimes has actively contributed to them. Until that changes, the movement for gender equality will be incomplete.

Take one of the men's issues Watson mentioned in her speech: seeing her divorced father's role as a parent "valued less by society" than her mother's. It is true that in the 1970s and 1980s, feminist challenges to discriminatory, sex-specific laws helped end formal preferences for mothers in child custody matters. But as fathers began to fight against more covert anti-male biases in the court system, most feminists sided with mothers.

There are plenty of other examples. The women's movement has fought, rightly, for more societal attention to domestic abuse and sexual violence. But male victims of these crimes still tend to get short shrift, from the media and activists alike. Despite several recent high-profile recent sexual assault cases in which the victims were teenage girls, disturbing cases in which boys were victimized - by other boys or by girls - have received far less publicity and sparked little outrage. Experiments have shown that while people are quick to intervene when a man in a staged public quarrel becomes physically abusive to his girlfriend, reactions to a similar situation with the genders reversed mostly range from indifference to amusement or even sympathy for the woman. To a large extent, as feminists sometimes point out, these attitudes stem from traditional gender norms which treat victimhood, especially at a woman's hands, as unmanly. But today's mainstream feminism, which regards sexual assault and domestic violence as byproducts of male power over women, tends to reinforce rather than challenge such double standards.

Just in the past few days, many feminist commentators have taken great umbrage at suggestions that soccer star Hope Solo, currently facing charges for assaulting her sister and teenage nephew, deserves similar censure to football player Ray Rice, who was caught on video striking his fiancée. Their argument boils down to the assertion that violence by men toward their female partners should be singled out because it's a bigger problem than female violence toward family members. Meanwhile, in Watson's native England, activists from women's organizations recently blamed the shortage of services for abused women on efforts to accommodate abused men (despite the fact that, as Guardian columnist and blogger Ally Fogg demonstrated, even the lowest estimates of the prevalence of domestic violence against men suggest that male victims are far less likely than women to get help).

Watson deserves credit for wanting to end the idea that "fighting for women's rights [is] synonymous with man-hating." But she cannot do that if she treats such notions only as unfair stereotypes. How about addressing this message to feminists who complain about being "asked to modify our language so we don't hurt men's feelings" when talking about misogyny - for instance, not to generalize about all men as oppressors? Or to those who argue that "Kill all men" mugs and "I bathe in male tears" T-shirts are a great way to celebrate women's empowerment and separate the "cool dudes" who get the joke from the "dumb bros"? Or to those who accuse a feminist woman of "victim-blaming" for defending her son against a sexual assault accusation - even one of which he is eventually cleared?

Men must, indeed, "feel welcome to participate in the conversation" about gender issues. But very few will do so if that "conversation" amounts to being told to " shut up and listen " while women talk about the horrible things men do to women, and being labeled a misogynist for daring to point out that bad things happen to men too and that women are not always innocent victims in gender conflicts. A real conversation must let men talk not only about feminist-approved topics such as gender stereotypes that keep them from expressing their feelings, but about more controversial concerns: wrongful accusations of rape; sexual harassment policies that selectively penalize men for innocuous banter; lack of options to avoid unwanted parenthood once conception has occurred. Such a conversation would also acknowledge that pressures on men to be successful come not only from "the patriarchy" but, often, from women as well. And it would include an honest discussion of parenthood, including many women's reluctance to give up or share the primary caregiver role.

It goes without saying that these are "First World problems." In far too many countries around the world, women still lack basic rights and patriarchy remains very real (though it is worth noting that even in those places, men and boys often have to deal with gender-specific hardships, from forced recruitment into war to mass violence that singles out males). But in the industrial democracies of North America and Europe, the revolution in women's rights over the past century has been a stunning success - and, while there is still work to be done, it must include the other side of that revolution. Not "he for she," but "She and he for us."

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine.

Here's What 20 Famous Women Think About Feminism

D Dipasupil-Getty Images for Extra

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Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men

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"Gender equality is your issue too." That was the message to men from Emma Watson, Harry Potter star and now United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador, in her widely hailed U.N. speech earlier this week announcing a new feminist campaign with a "formal invitation" to male allies to join.

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Modern feminism has got it wrong about men

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Modern feminism has got it wrong about men

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The Telegraph

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Earlier this year I was asked to present at a feminist society event in one of the UK's largest and most prestigious universities. I espoused the view that I must be really lucky, because if recent feminist musings in the press and online are to be believed, misogyny is absolutely rife, yet I have very rarely encountered it.

I've had the odd blustering huffer-puffer over the years who has clearly thought himself superior, but I've always presumed that's because of my comparative age and slightly avant garde fashion sense, rather than the simple fact of my vagina. (Whilst it isn't right to form assumptions about someone based on these criteria, it does take the issue out of the realms of feminism.) These instances have, however, been incredibly few and far between. As for the men I regularly spend time with - my male colleagues and friends, boyfriend, dad, my three brothers and numerous uncles and cousins - they've never given me any cause to suspect they're anything but pro-gender equality.

At the end of the session, one of the Society's senior members said: "It's great that you don't think there's any misogyny in your world, but I think if you talked to these men for long enough you'd find there were some pretty sinister ideas about women buried somewhere beneath the surface."

In that moment, I suddenly realised why so many aspects of the modern feminist movement in Britain irritate me so much. Don't misunderstand, I'd consider myself a feminist and I'm all for structural changes which ensure equal treatment of the sexes - the types that are working to ensure we have an equal number of female MPs and laws to prevent female genital mutilation, for example. But cultural "feminist" changes, the types that insist lads mags, Page 3 and wolf-whistling are automatically offensive and should therefore be scrapped from the public consciousness, I have always struggled to comprehend. For, at their crux is the notion that men are either genetically or socially conditioned to be evil. This explains why relatively harmless acts - an admiring glance, a whistle, a propensity for lads mags - are imbued with such weighty significance, often lazily labelled as "rapey".

If a man looks at me, I infer he's doing it for the exact same reason a woman would - because he finds me interesting to look at. If a man whistles at me, I take it as the compliment I believe it was intended to be. If I see a man looking at a female glamour model, I suppose nothing more than he is looking at her because a naked woman is pretty much universally aesthetically pleasing. I have always assumed that Robin Thicke's Blurred Linestranspired to be the most downloaded single of all time in the UK because it's well produced and ridiculously catchy, not because huge swathes of the male population delight in the notion that men "know women want it" and use the lyrics as their life mantra. Call me naive if you must.

I've become increasingly bemused by the "Twitter activists" whose "feminist" world view, however much they try to disguise it, necessitates a dim view of mankind. Some, for example, have taken to posting pictures of men looking at Page 3 on the train, with captions branding these individuals "creepy", "vile" and "disgusting" without any sort of meaningful explanation. These women have made a broad assumption about what their male subjects are thinking - based on we know not what - and despise the product of their own projections.

Similarly, I'm horrified with the regularity and ease with which the word "misogynist" is flung about online. Recently, I wrote an article for a feminist publication on the importance of prioritisation and pragmatism in social progression and suggesting these were often sadly absent from feminist campaigning. During the subsequent inevitable Twitter storm (during which "feminists" threatened to "rip me apart", called me a "piece of s---" and a "brainless bimbo" in an incredibly sisterly fashion) a male tweeter calmly pointed out several historical instances where negotiation had resulted in progression. As a result, he was publicly called a "pendantic misogynist" by the mob.

A pedant he might have been, but it's worth noting the official definition of misogynist as "someone who hates women" rather than "anyone who dares question the popular feminist status quo".

In the same article, I dared to suggest that we should take into account men's feelings and viewpoints on key feminist issues. "Men have had their voices heard for FAR TOO LONG! IT'S OUR TURN!" came the online battle cry, as though even garnering some male opinions would be a threat to womankind's empowerment, so toxic and self-serving they would inevitably be.

The Everyday Sexism movement is a fantastic idea - an opportunity for an open debate on the ways in which genders mindlessly form prejudices against each other. So why have its followers largely excluded men from the conversation? "You can't be sexist towards men!" was a university student's response to this question at another debate I attended (she was studying feminism, by the way). Which is a bit like saying black people can't be racist.

In Britain in 2014, girls are entitled to the same education as boys, they can then go on to get any job they want and be paid the same as a man. Not only is this not true for millions of women throughout the world, it wasn't true for our foremothers. I'd much rather say to young women, "these rights were hard won. Go and make the most of them" than "no wonder you can't fulfil your potential! Men whistle at you and there are boobies in the newspaper, you poor helpless little things".

Today's feminism teaches British women to see themselves as victims and victims cannot exist without a villain, in this instance - men. In order for this thesis to have any kind of logic, feminists have made sweeping, inaccurate judgments about an entire demographic, based on nothing more than their gender. Ironically, the exact practice they claim to be fighting.

Gender equality requires co-operation on all sides. As a humanist, I'd like to see today's feminists give men a bit more credit - they might just be surprised.

Natasha Devon is a writer, television pundit and founder of the Body Gossip Education Programme, which delivers self-esteem classes to teenagers all over the UK. Natasha works alongside the All Parties Parliamentary Group on Body Image and is petitioning Education Secretary Michael Gove to give more priority and funding to Personal, Health and Social Education. She was named a Mental Health Association 'Hero' in 2012, one of Ernst & Young's top 50 Social Entrepreneurs in 2013 as well as one of Cosmopolitan Magazine's 'Ultimate Women'

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Modern feminism has got it wrong about men

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Earlier this year I was asked to present at a feminist society event in one of the UK's largest and most prestigious universities. I espoused the view that I must be really lucky, because if recent feminist musings in the press and online are to be believed, misogyny is absolutely rife, yet I have very rarely encountered it.

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TED.com

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Talks, people, playlists, topics, and events about "gender equality" on TED.com

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BrainPOP

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UN organisation

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HeForShe is an invitation for men and people of all genders to stand in solidarity with women to create a bold, visible and united force for gender equality. The men of HeForShe aren't on the sidelines. They're working with women and with each other to build businesses, raise families, and give back to their communities.

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HeForShe is an invitation for men and people of all genders to stand in solidarity with women to create a bold, visible and united force for gender equality. The men of HeForShe aren't on the sidelines. They're working with women and with each other to build businesses, raise families, and give back to their communities.

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About 85% of girls in Indonesia end their education once they marry .

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About 85% of girls in Indonesia end their education once they marry .

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1 in 6 girls get married before the age of 18 which means they may not get their education completed.
the age September 16 2017
'wedlocked:child brides count the cost'.

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Mellody Hobson seems surprised when I ask her whether she has encountered discrimination because of her race.

I'm trying not to appear presumptuous, but suspect she probably has, and she quickly confirms it. "I'm black," says Hobson, who is one of corporate America's shining stars. "So, yes."

iPhone 8 goes off with a whimper

The president of Ariel Investments, a boutique firm with more than $US15 billion ($A18.8 billion) in assets under management, is a director of The Estee Lauder Companies, Starbucks Corporation and Dreamworks Animation, and in Sydney to promote Ariel's office set up here more than two years ago. But we quickly get caught up in discussions about gender and politics.

Trump's legacy

The Chicago-headquartered firm is one of the largest African-American mutual fund companies in the US. It invests in all-size companies around the world, but as yet doesn't own any Australian shares (Hobson notes they are "underweight" in bank and mining shares).

The Sydney office, managed by Ian Webber, recently landed aviation superannuation fund AvSuper as a client (Ariel will manage about $110 million in offshore equities for the fund) and an institution based in the Middle East.

Hobson doesn't believe uncertainty surrounding Trump and North Korea are significantly weighing on the global sharemarket, but is worried about the impact Trump's rhetoric could have on future generations.

In the era of Donald Trump, perhaps no issue has galvanised Americans more than race. When Trump initially failed to criticise white nationalists after the attack in Charlottesville in which three people died and dozens were injured - he waited until two days later to directly condemn the supremacists - Hobson felt deflated.

Civil Rights 2.0?

"It's surreal and sad," she says, adding that she still respects the American presidential office and always will.

"I don't worry about my own destiny, I worry about our kids ... who don't have the resources or the life experience to put this in context. And that this could sow seeds of distrust and anger and hate that could take generations to fix."

Hobson hopes Americans turn division into unity. Some are calling it Civil Rights 2.0. "We have the opportunity to make sure we speak our truth and not be bystanders and sit on the sidelines," she says.

Even with her public profile - in 2015 Hobson was named in Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2016 photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the prestigious Pirelli Calendar, and is a regular contributor for CBS News - Hobson still gets confused as the "help".

'I'm one of you'

"I've been in meetings where men at the table don't make eye contact, and I'm like, I'm president!," Hobson says. "They don't know they're doing it. It's subconscious."

I've been in meetings where men at the table don't make eye contact, and I'm like, I'm president!
Mellody Hobson, Ariel Investments

She recalls going on a business-related California retreat and being transported on a golf cart when a male member on the trip turned to her and asked how long she'd worked at the retreat. "I was like, 'I don't. I'm one of you'."

That's just one example. There are numerous others. "I've been thought to be a flight attendant many many times," she says.

"I've told stories about people coming to my office and giving me their coats and requesting that I hang them up and get coffee - which I dutifully do. And then I come in and sit at the head of the table. It's awkward. It happens less so now, because I am known. But it used to happen a lot."

No Google memo admiration

The infamous 10-page anti-diversity Google memo demonstrated that the corporate world needs to "stop admiring the problem. Act".

Yet the biggest barrier for women advancing their careers isn't just sexist attitudes held by some men; there's also the fact that women often leave the workforce to have and take care of children.

"I'm in an incredibly unique situation ... to have people who can help sustain me and my family while I am away," Hobson says. "The same is true of my husband [she is married to American filmmaker and Star Wars creator George Lucas].

"I cannot tell you how much respect and admiration I have for women who have to carry this burden on their own ... I was one of six children of a single mother. I lived and saw first-hand how hard it is."

Evangelist of sorts

She says this is why she is an "evangelist" for financial literacy. "We don't learn about investing in school," she says.

And financial literacy courses available outside of formal education are not targeting the right issues. "It is not about reading a utility bill," she says. "It is about understanding the power of compounding."

Hobson continually draws quotes from Warren Buffet during our interview, but now cites Albert Einstein who said: "compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it."

"It can work for you in terms of making your money grow," Hobson says, "or it can work against you in terms of debt and high interest. Understanding that can profoundly affect a family."

Life lessons

Irrespective of any financial literacy issues, Hobson received a decent education. The Princeton University graduate also learnt early in life about the harsh realities of being an African American woman.

In a recent TED talk called Colour Blind or Colour Brave?, Hobson explained how as a seven-year-old she'd returned home from a friend's birthday where she was the only black child invited.

Her mother, Dorothy Ashley, instead of asking her questions like, "Did you have fun?" or "How was the cake?", looked at her and said, "How did they treat you?"

"I was a child, and she said, 'They won't always treat you well'," she says. "It was foreshadowing what would come to toughen me up. To make sure that I wasn't defeated by some of the things that were inevitably going to happen and have happened."

No retribution

For the TED talk, Hobson wears a Valentino outfit - what she calls her "uniform". It's a reference to another incident, in 2006. She had accompanied her friend and politician Harold Ford, who was running a Tennessee Senate campaign, on a trip to New York.

They were heading to a lunch, where Ford was due to speak, but instead the receptionist confused them as hotel staff and led them into a secluded room before asking, "Where are your uniforms?"

"There's nothing wrong with being help," Hobson says. "But it's very wrong that we presume people of colour are in a subservient position. That's problematic."

She's not about retribution. "Hopefully we can enlighten," she says. "There are times you can't help but be angry and upset, but I really try to be elegant. I really try to use the opportunity to educate in such a way that I don't come across as an angry black woman, because that's what many people think we are."

Obama love

If anything turned this stereotype on its head it was former US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama. Hobson tears up when she speaks about them.

"I love Obama. And Michelle. I was so grateful for them. They were such stunning people. We were lucky to have them. They were great symbols for our society."

In her most recent Christmas card for friends and family, she borrowed a quote from Barack Obama: "There's never been anything false about hope."

"That's why even in the midst of this, I can be very very hopeful," she says.

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'Surreal and sad': American businesswoman's take on Trump

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Mellody Hobson seems surprised when I ask her whether she has encountered discrimination because of her race. I'm trying not to appear presumptuous, but suspect she probably has, and she quickly confirms it. "I'm black," says Hobson, who is one of corporate America's shining stars. "So, yes."

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The announcement that Saudi Arabia will finally allow women to drive has been hailed a watershed moment for gender equality, but the kingdom still has many laws in place that restrict the rights of women, activists say.

Interested in Saudi Arabia?

Add Saudi Arabia as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Saudi Arabia news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world that forbids women from getting behind the wheel, announced that women will be allowed to obtain drivers' licenses for the first time in June 2018.

In the meantime, a newly-formed committee will develop a plan on how to implement the royal decree in accordance with religious and regulatory standards, presenting its recommendations within 30 days.

"This is a historic big day in our kingdom," Prince Khaled bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, said during a press conference Tuesday at the Saudi embassy in Washington.

Ambassador bin Salman confirmed women will be allowed to apply for a license, take driving lessons and drive any vehicle without needing legal permission from their male guardians. The choice to do so will be solely up to women, bin Salman said, but he acknowledged "there might be social issues."

Tasneem Alsultan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Reacting to the news, U.S. Department of State Spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters at a press briefing, "It's a great step in the right direction for that country."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on his official Twitter, "I welcome Saudi Arabia's decision to lift the ban on women drivers. An important step in the right direction."

But Saudi Arabia's longstanding ban on women drivers is just one of a number of rules that restrict nearly every aspect of daily life for the ultra-conservative nation's female population. While the new decree marks a breakthrough, Saudi women are still not in the driver's seat when it comes to making many key decisions in their own lives, largely because of the country's male guardianship system, a recent report by Human Rights Watch found.

Tasneem Alsultan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Activists say the kingdom's guardianship policies effectively render adult women legal minors because they must obtain a male guardian's consent for even the most mundane activities. A woman's father, husband, brother or son constitute a guardian.

"We need to pause and congratulate all of the courageous women activists who have been pushing for this outcome for decades," Ahmed Benchemsi, advocacy and communications director for Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, told ABC News. "However, this should be put in perspective with other violations that do persist."

Here are 13 things -- among others -- women in Saudi Arabia cannot do freely due to the country's strict laws and guardianship policies.

Marry

Women cannot wed without the consent of their male guardians, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Divorce

A woman also needs a male guardian's permission to divorce. And until the divorce is finalized, a woman's husband remains her legal guardian throughout the process, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Moreover, men may petition the courts to forcibly divorce a female relative from her husband if they deem the marriage "unfit," the report found.

Have custody of children

Women cannot retain custody of their children in a divorce after the kids reach the age of 7 for boys and 9 for girls, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Get a passport

Women cannot obtain passports or identification cards without permission of a male guardian, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Travel

Women are not allowed to travel abroad without male permission, and they are often not permitted to leave home alone, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Leave jail

Women who are convicted of a crime and serve a sentence behind bars cannot leave prison without the permission of a male guardian, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

In some cases, the guardian refuses.

"There is this feeling that she brought shame upon her family and the honor of her family has been damaged and therefore the guardian won't come and free her," Benchemsi told ABC News.

Open a bank account

Women need the permission of a male guardian to open their own bank account, Benchemsi said, and they can't open bank accounts for their children without written consent from the child's father, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Get a job

There are few careers in Saudi Arabia that women are allowed to pursue without male consent, according to the Human Rights Watch report, and some companies don't even want to hire women.

Dress how they want

Saudi Arabia adheres to a strict version of Sharia, or Islamic law, in which all women must cover their bodies and hair when appearing in public. A headscarf and an abaya, a full-length, loose-fitting robe, must be worn, according to a fact sheet from the U.S. State Department.

Interact freely with men

Women must limit conversations and physical closeness with men who are not family members. They are also segregated from the opposite sex in public spaces including banks, offices, restaurants, and universities, which have a separately designated family section and a section reserved for men, according to the U.S. State Department.

Receive equal inheritance

Under Saudi Arabia's Sharia inheritance laws, daughters only receive half of what their brothers are entitled to, according to the U.S. State Department.

Get a fair trial

The testimony of a man in Saudi Arabia's courts equals that of two women, according to the U.S. State Department. In other words, a woman's statement is only worth half of a man's.

Seek medical treatment

While the State Department notes that Saudi women can make their own determinations regarding hospital care, the Human Rights Watch report found that a guardian's permission is required for certain medical treatments, including elective surgery and even life-saving procedures.

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13 things women in Saudi Arabia still can't do

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The announcement that Saudi Arabia will finally allow women to drive has been hailed a watershed moment for gender equality, but the kingdom still has many laws in place that restrict the rights of women, activists say. Add Saudi Arabia as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Saudi Arabia news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

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Sheryl WuDunn: Our century’s greatest injustice | TED Talk

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Sheryl WuDunn’s book “Half the Sky” investigates the oppression of women globally. Her stories shock. Only when women in developing countries have equal access to education and economic opportunity will we be using all our human resources.

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Yatra Foundation has several projects underway including some very
successful partnerships with non-governmental and
not-for-profit organizations within India.

Yatra Faria School, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan

Established in 2009 on the border of India's most famous tiger reserve, this school was established in conjunction with an Indian NGO (GSK). We now support 120 students at this school, delivering a personalised curriculum that is reviewed daily and includes an excellent sports program to supplement the academic one. The students are drawn from 4 local villages, on land donated by a local farmer whose dream was to see his children at school rather than working in the fields. Yatra actively support Sports programme with equipment in all four GSK schools. Recently seven children from these schools were selected for admission into a national sports academy, validating the importance of sport in our curriculm. We have regularly held medical and dental clinics at this school, reinforcing our desire to integrate personal and public health measures into our school environment, to maximize learning. The school is being rebuilt with architecturally designed spaces and classrooms, with the money raised by our 2015 Yatra bike tour in November, which rode to the school with the students and teachers. This school has now become a "model" school for the region with numerous government schools now wishing to emulate our teaching methods. To this effect, we have now seconded several teachers to a local government school to empower the local teachers and leverage our influence on education in the area.

Yatra will provide continued support for Faria School until the transition to full community ownership is complete. Teacher education programs will emulate the Yatra model for education based on the success of the Isha Vidya program in Tamil Nadu. Yatra is committed to stay involved in the program until children currently positioned in kindergarten reach a level of education equivalent to Year 12, expected in 2030.

Once this process is complete, Yatra anticipates Faria School to transition to a pure resource organisation for local governments, partnering with local Non-Government Organisations in order to do so.

Yatra Isha Vidhya School, Cuddlelore, Tamil Nadu

Located in southern Tamil Nadu, nestled near the tsunami-prone shores of the Bay of Bengal, Yatra foundation provides Teacher salary and Teacher training to enable local children to attend this state-of-the-art facility in conjunction with Isha Vidhya foundation. These students benefit from excellent classrooms and computer facilities and learn in a full English-medium curriculum. These students receive a nutritious daily meal, cooked on-site in the school kitchen and are drawn from the numerous local fishing hamlets scattered along this picturesque coastal region. Yatra foundation provides teacher salary subsidies to recruit and retain the best available teachers. We also provide training to local rural teachers to enhance their classroom skills and again, leverage our effectiveness in reaching a larger number of needy children.
Recently, 150 local headmasters and young teachers from 50 regional schools attended a workshop at the Yatra Cuddlelore School to learn about teaching methods, evaluation, and resource allocation. We hope to continue these workshops on a regular basis so that these teaching methods and processes can be disseminated around southern Tamil Nadu. We are now seeing some extraordinary academic results especially in science and computing. The children at this school now have hope with a belief and confidence that they can dream and accomplish great outcomes. Many of our supporters have visited and marvelled at the level of education being delivered in this remote location. We are now hoping to add year 11 and 12 to this school. We conduct regular medical and dental camps at this school also to ensure our children are healthy in mind and body.

Yatra is committed to providing continued teacher training and support programs for the student cohorts currently in Grades 2 and 4 at Isha Vidya. Such training will remain until the respective cohorts complete education equivalent to Year 12 level. Yatra aims that through this process teacher training will reach a standard of excellence so as to establish Isha Vidya as the model program for teacher education in the region. Yatra anticipates thereafter that Isha Vidya will become the preeminent resource for Government Education in the region, allowing the school to transition to alternate sources of funding and ultimately become self sufficient. Self-sufficiency will be determined by :

1. 95% of parents paying a nominal school fee

2. Government providing 50% of teachers salary

3. Past students and their families funding 20% of the teacher salary

, and will be expected to come about in [2025]. Once the program reaches self-sufficiency, Yatra will withdraw financial support for Isha Vidya, and look toward other opportunities.

Yatra Seva Mandir schools, Rural Udaipur, Rajasthan

In partnership with Seva Mandir, an exceptional NGO well established in Rajasthan, we have established 20 shiksha kendras (rural educational learning centres) each with an average of 30 students drawn from the corresponding local village with the teachers often sourced from the same village. These children receive a quality bridging education with the aim of integrating them into government schools when the requisite skills have been acquired to equip them for future long-term success. We are in the process of integrating a comprehensive health program into all of the 172 shiksha kendras run by Seva Mandir. We have just committed to support for further two years for 20 of these wonderful single classroom schools, taking the number of students we are supporting in this arid region to 750. In addition Yatra together with Seva is now working toward building teacher capacity and also evaluating the long term impact education has on the community.

Yatra aims to oversee the transition of all School Capital funding from the Yatra Foundation to full community ownership. It is expected that in so doing, local governments will begin to implement Yatra Foundation protocols to optimize school readiness preparation to cope with increased enrollment in government schools. Yatra will begin the transition of School maintenance responsibilities to be taken up in partnership with the local community and government. The completion of such a transition will be expected in [2030].

We feel proud that we have achieved some of our goals over the past 9 years. We also realise that we now have a serious responsibility to support these 1100 students through their whole educational lives (and not just a few years), and are so grateful that we have such generous, far-sighted, and committed supporters joining us on this social justice venture in India.

Archive: Project Information

Kota Basti School

This was Yatra Foundations' first project in India. A small school was started within a slum in the surrounds of Kota, a large education coaching town with many tertiary education facilities. This slum was surveyed and found to be in need for a primary school. The small school was opened in December of 2007 and has been well accepted and embraced by the slum community.

Unfortunately since the Federal Government of India has introduced the "Right to Education" bill to be fully implemented from March 2013, the Basti school will no longer be deemed a satisfactory environment for a "school" due the many high tension electrical wires, and poor sanitation in the surrounding area and Yatra have had to cease functioning as a school. Ironically, the government has opened a government school right next door to our own building!!

The Basti community strongly support the continued presence of Yatra Foundation so we are currently trying to work out other ways to help this poor community with education, resource facilities, health camps, homework support and other initiatives. Yatra Foundation has actively sought alternative arrangements for 20 children who wish to continue with their studies and do not want to attend the government school. These children are being transported daily to a private school for the remainder of their primary schooling.

Santosh Computer School

This small computer training facility is located in the village of Mandana, close to Kota in Rajasthan. The teacher is able to provide essential computer skills for both high school and University age children and young adults and allows them additional time to practice these skills away from school. So far, there have been 147 students trained at the centre and it continues to provide support for many children and young adults.

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Established in 2009 on the border of India's most famous tiger reserve, this school was established in conjunction with an Indian NGO (GSK). We now support 120 students at this school, delivering a personalised curriculum that is reviewed daily and includes an excellent sports program to supplement the academic one.

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My computer

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Julia Gillard talks about gender equality in Australia.

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How is Australia going when it comes to gender equality? A new World Economic Forum survey found that Iceland was the best place to be if you're a woman. But how does Australia rank? Produced by Patrick Abboud The Feed airs weeknights at 19:30 on SBS 2.

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How can we break the cycle of poverty for girls.

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“Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong.”

“We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop. Women should feel free. There is no typical feminist, there is nothing anywhere that says you have to meet a certain [set of] criteria.”

“Women and girls have always faced hurdles. But that’s never stopped us. We’ve sacrificed, fought, campaigned, succeeded, been knocked back, and succeeded again. In a race for justice, we’ve leapt over countless obstacles to win our rights.”

“Feminism can be humorous, and we all have a different way of approaching that. I often wonder what mischief I can make to spread the word in a playful way. You can’t take everything in life seriously, can you?”

“If I asked a young boy what superhero they looked up to, I feel a lot fewer would say a female one or would ever use an example of a female one, than in reverse, which is a shame. We need to live in a culture that values and respects and looks up to and idolizes women as much as men.”

“This isn’t just, ‘girls are better than boys, boys are better than girls.’ This is just, ‘everyone deserves a fair chance.’”

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"We cannot all succeed if half of us are held back"
- Malala Yousafzai

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12 steps to achieve gender equality in our lifetimes

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12 steps to achieve gender equality in our lifetimes

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The Guardian

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12 steps to achieve gender equality in our lifetimes

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What obstacles are slowing down progress to gender equality in politics and the work place? An expert panel share their thoughts

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Five Ways to Promote Gender Equality in 2016

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We are only few days away from New Year's eve, and the air is filled with the exciting promise of the endless possibilities of the new year. The chance to start over, clean the slate, make resolutions about being a better You - perhaps related to a healthier lifestyle, spending less money, being better at keeping in touch with family and relatives, exercising more, spending less time on the internet, learning a new skill. Resolutions often reflect the person we think we would like to be - an ideal version of Me.

This New Year's, perhaps you can make a resolution to do one thing in 2016 to promote gender equality in your community. It doesn't need to be anything big or grand, because even the smallest of things can make a huge difference in a person's life - and, the smallest of actions are often the catalyst for a bigger wave of change and progress. Here are five suggestions on how You can step up for gender equality and women's and girls' rights in 2016. Make this a part of your list of promises for this New Year - and if we all manage to do even one of these things, we can all be a part of building a better world for women and girls.

1. See something? Say something.

It may be almost 2016, but sadly sexual violence and violence against women and girls is still commonplace and rampant almost everywhere in the world. Sometimes it can seem like a small thing - a man making a sexist comment when passing a woman on the street, a stranger making unwanted approaches to a woman on public transport, a friend of yours saying something misogynistic on social media. But these "small" things all promote a culture where women and girls are not valued. They send a message that it is okay to treat women and girls badly, that it is acceptable to devalue us, to dehumanize us - and that, in turn, paves the way for much more serious violations of women's and girls' rights, security and autonomy. So don't stay silent - step up when you witness such behavior. Raise your voice against sexism, misogyny and patriarchy. Ask us for help, and we will support you - as will thousands and thousands of others who are tired of a world where sexism and violence are accepted and normalized. It is time to say "No more!"

2. Use your Vote

Voting is such an important way to influence the societies we live in. Remember that no election is too small to matter - starting from the smallest of local elections all the way to the Presidential ones, each election will determine the people in charge of creating policies, budgets, guidelines and laws that influence the world we live in. In 2016, find our where your candidates stand on women's and girls' rights and gender equality issues and make sure to use your vote in every election that is happening in your community and country. Vote for people who are not afraid to talk about the challenges women and girls continue to face, and who have a clear plan on how to improve the status of gender equality in your country.

3. Raise or donate money for a cause that promotes gender equality

Many women's organizations struggle with limited resources. Find a cause near your heart, related to women's and girls' rights and gender equality, and donate money or raise funds to support that cause. Check out Catapult, a crowd-funding platform for gender equality - or find an organization like Global Fund for Women to donate to and support women and girls around the world. Do you like what we're doing at Girls' Globe? You can also donate to support our work.

4. Raise awareness about issues concerning women and girls in your community

First, educate yourself - and then educate others. Find out what are some of the biggest challenges for women and girls in your society: is it violence against women, lack of educational opportunities, gender pay gap, lack of sufficient sexual and reproductive health services? Learn about the gaps that exist and hinder women's and girls' empowerment and ability to live to their full potential - and then make some noise! Talk to other people about what you have learned, advocate via social media, write an Op-Ed for the local newspaper, contact the local radio station. Find organizations that work on these issues and get involved. Organize a town hall meeting to talk about what can be done to fix the problems - and encourage others to join you Change starts from awareness - and we can all play a part in spreading that awareness around!

5. Believe that a Gender Equal world is possible - and settle for nothing less.

The road may seem long - but don't lose faith. I believe that we can reach a gender equal world, hopefully within my own lifetime - and I want to be a part of making that world a reality. I believe it will not only be beneficial for women and girls, but for men and boys too, like my son - and I want to see him grow up in a world where all people, regardless of their gender (and there are more than two!) or any other trait, are treated equally and fairly. Keep believing that this is a realistic goal, a reachable goal - and don't settle for anything less than full equality. Some may claim it's utopia or unrealistic, but I beg to differ. What I think is unrealistic is to expect that we, as a global community, can have any sort of sustainable development or progress when half of our population continue to be discriminated against because of their gender. It's time to put a stop to that. I believe we can do that, and I'm up for the task! It's almost 2016 - will you join me?
Featured image courtesy of UNICEF Ethiopia.

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Five Ways to Promote Gender Equality in 2016 - Girls' Globe

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We are only few days away from New Year's eve, and the air is filled with the exciting promise of the endless possibilities of the new year. The chance to start over, clean the slate, make resolutions about being a better You - perhaps related to a healthier lifestyle, spending less money, being better at ...

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Girl Globe

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Posts about Feminism written by Julia Wiklander, Eleanor Gall, and Andrea Odessa

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From Child Worker to Girl with Big Dreams

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From Child Worker to Girl with Big Dreams

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Girl Globe

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In 2001, Diane* was born to a family of poor farmers in a small town in Burundi-a landlocked nation in East Africa where 81% of the population lives on less than $1.90 per day. The money her parents earned wasn't enough to provide Diane the stable life she desperately needed as a child. Sadly, when Diane was six, her parents were unable to cover the costs of medical care and ultimately lost their lives to malaria. Without a family, Diane found herself completely alone. Instead of starting primary school, she was forced to work as a domestic worker in order to survive.

" I was six years old at the time. I felt alone, confused, rejected, with nowhere to go," Diane said. " I looked for work as a domestic helper. I moved from family to family looking for a place that could be the home I had lost. I really suffered. "

Diane's story is heartbreaking, but sadly not unique. Her plight of having to work in order to survive is shared by hundreds of thousands of orphaned children in Burundi-a country which is ranked one of the 10 worst countries in the world for child labor. In fact, nearly one in four children in Burundi is a child worker.

Many of these children are forced into domestic servitude either to support their families or even just to support themselves. While at work, they are more likely to become victims of verbal or physical abuse. Orphaned girls in Burundi like Diane are particularly vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor like sex trafficking, exploitation or domestic work in private households. The toll this can have on these girls' emotional and mental health is significant.

Child labor also has an especially detrimental effect on girls' education. Girls often leave school disproportionally earlier than their male peers to undertake domestic work. Sadly, by forgoing school for work, their chances of becoming self-sufficient, contributing members of society are significantly diminished.

One way to break this cycle is to make sure that girls are given a chance to grow up in stable families. Families that allow them to be children and do what children are supposed to do: learn, play and feel loved. For girls who live with vulnerable families, it's critical that we help them become stable and strong through family support programs in order to prevent family breakdown and child abandonment. For orphaned, abandoned and other vulnerable children, we need to work tirelessly to make sure they are able to grow up in a stable, loving family environment - like the one Diane is growing up in today.

In 2009, when Diane was eight years old, she was welcomed to live with a family headed by an SOS Mother-a trained caregiver-at the SOS Children's Village in Cibitoke, Burundi. The village is one of 570 SOS Children's Villages working around the world to provide loving and stable families for children in need. Growing up in such an environment provides girls like Diane with the building blocks needed to realize their full potential: an education, medical care and a stable family.

" My mind is settled now and I am performing well in school," said Diane, when asked about her life in the SOS Village. " My SOS Mother helped me to feel important and to regain my self-confidence. I now know that the power to become what I want to be in life lies within me. Now that I have a chance to go to school - good school - I know my future depends on the effort I put into my schoolwork. "

Diane's transformation from a child worker to a child full of dreams is a testament to how a stable family can change the course of a girl's life. Today, Diane, 13, is free of everyday worries of survival and receives the love and support she needs to dream big and pursue her dreams.

As global citizens, we should all work together to empower girls worldwide by providing them with the building blocks needed to realize their full potential: a stable home, education and quality health care.
This summer you can change the course of a girl's life by supporting SOS Children's Villages' Invest in a Girl campaign. Sponsor a girl and receive an ALEX AND ANI Sand Castle Charm Bangle, designed for SOS Children's Villages. *Name changed for privacy reasons

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From Child Worker to Girl with Big Dreams - Girls' Globe

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In 2001, Diane* was born to a family of poor farmers in a small town in Burundi-a landlocked nation in East Africa where 81% of the population lives on less than $1.90 per day. The money her parents earned wasn't enough to provide Diane the stable life she desperately needed as a child.

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Ways You Can Advance Gender Equality in the Workplace Today

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Ways You Can Advance Gender Equality in the Workplace Today

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Pop sugar

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OK, first the good news: more and more companies are getting wise to the importance of gender equality in the workplace. Studies have shown that more women means better decision-making, more innovation, and even greater financial returns.

And the not-so-good news: even with new programs and policies that have been implemented, the World Economic Forum estimates that the gender wage gap could take 170 years to close. That's a long, long time.

So what's going to bring change faster? Fast enough for us to see in our lifetime? You guessed it . . . it's women doing more for ourselves and working together to make change. There are many of things - large and small - that we can all do in our daily routine in the workplace to bring gender equality about faster. Such as:

1. Ask For a Raise

I've managed a lot of people in my day, and I'll tell you one thing: men love asking for raises. It's like a hobby for them. But women . . . not so much. So imagine the power of every woman asking emphatically for a raise - the way that men do. It would be like a mini women's march every day. Goodbye, gender wage gap.

2. Support Another Woman

Women are notoriously competitive with each other in the workplace. Cut that sh*t out. Go find a woman you don't know well, and ask her to coffee. Speak up about something awesome that another woman accomplished. Give some free career advice to another woman just because.

3. (Gently) Criticise Another Woman

When I was in my first job out of college, my (female) manager took the time to pull me aside and tell me that I wasn't dressing appropriately for the office. I almost died of embarrassment. And yet - I'm so glad she did. I would not be where I am today if she hadn't gone above and beyond to have the "hard conversation" with me. And at least she was nice enough to do it over drinks.

4. Join Your Women's Network and Make It Count

Set objectives for things that your women's employee resource group can work to address. Does your company publicly announce its gender split? Do you have enough women in leadership roles? Are there enough mentoring opportunities? Is there succession planning and career tracking for women? Appropriate career tracking? Identify some key areas you'd like to make change in, and raise them to management. Special bonus: you'll raise your own profile at the same time.

5. Make Yourself Visible and Make Sure That Everyone Knows Who You Are

Most women were raised not to brag. But you have to be your own publicist and make sure everyone at the company knows who you are and why you're awesome. So find ways to meet people who are not in your area. Build your reputation as the awesome woman who the company can't live without.

6. Share Your Experiences

Knowledge is power. That's why we invented Fairygodboss, an online community dedicated to improving the workplace for women by creating transparency. Case in point: we checked the top 100 of the Fortune 500 - and only six of those companies publicly posted their maternity leave policies on their websites. So we crowdsourced them . . .

Join the movement! Get online, leave a free anonymous review of your company, and help make sure your company knows what is working and what just doesn't fly. Either that, or you can just start wearing your pink pussyhat to work.
Fairygodboss is an online career community for women. Our mission is to improve the workplace for women by creating transparency. YOU can help us help women everywhere by anonymously sharing information about your work experience on Fairygodboss.

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6 Ways You Can Advance Gender Equality in the Workplace Today

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OK, first the good news: more and more companies are getting wise to the importance of gender equality in the workplace. Studies have shown that more women means better decision-making, more innovation, and even greater financial returns.

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The last few weeks have seen Virginia racked by government scandals, including Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring's histories with blackface, and allegations of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. Democratic Party leadership has since swiftly called for the resignations of Northam and Fairfax - demands that some on both sides of the aisle have ignorantly all but chalked up to excessive "political correctness."

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The last few weeks have seen Virginia racked by government scandals, including Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring's histories with blackface, and allegations of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.

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Femsplain

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Search writing on Femsplain We publish stories to change 💛 and minds.

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Gender Equality

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Search writing on Amy Poehler's Smart Girls Founded by artist Amy Poehler and producer Meredith Walker, Amy Poehler's Smart Girls organization is dedicated to helping young people cultivate their authentic selves.

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Girls Inc. | Inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold

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After that summer, she stepped up to lead as a peer advisor, an experience that taught her about public speaking, confidence, and strength. Through Girls Inc., Chisom also had the opportunity to connect with women professionals from various fields, confirming and further inspiring her interest in the medical field.

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To empower girls to imagine a broader future through a curriculum grounded on female role models delivered by college women mentors, who are themselves mentored by professional women. Strong Women, Strong Girls strives to support positive mentoring relationships between college women and pre-adolescent girls in underserved local communities with the vision that every girl realize her inner strengths to dream and do.

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To empower girls to imagine a broader future through a curriculum grounded on female role models delivered by college women mentors, who are themselves mentored by professional women. Strong Women, Strong Girls strives to support positive mentoring relationships between college women and pre-adolescent girls in underserved local communities with the vision that every girl realize her inner strengths to dream and do.

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The problems with education in war strewn countries.

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UNICEF | Children's Rights & Emergency Relief Organization

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Education in emergencies

Wars, conflicts and natural disasters spare no children. In fact, children suffer the most. In countries affected by emergencies, children often lose their homes, family members, friends, safety and routine.

Without access to education, they are at risk of losing their futures.

Over the past half century, the world has seen a rising number of crises stemming from conflict, natural disasters and epidemics. Worse, many crises are prolonged, spanning entire childhoods and persisting for generations. When they disrupt schooling, it not only undermines children's present well-being, but also puts their futures - and those of their societies - in jeopardy.

The numbers on education in emergencies:

* 1 in 4 of world's out-of-school children live in crises-affected countries

* In 35 crisis-affected countries, humanitarian emergencies and protracted crises disrupted the education of 75 million children between the ages of 3 and 18.

* Over 17 million school-aged children in those countries are refugees, displaced within or outside their countries, and of these, only half attend primary school, while less than a quarter are in secondary school.

* For children who attend school during emergencies, the quality of education can be low, with an average of 70 pupils per teacher, who are often unqualified.

* Girls in conflict-affected settings are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys

Education is a lifeline for children in crisis UNICEF's work in emergencies

For children in emergencies, education is lifesaving. Schools give children stability and structure to help cope with the trauma they have experienced. Schools can protect children from the physical dangers around them, including abuse, exploitation and recruitment into armed groups. In many cases, schools also provide children with other lifesaving interventions, such as food, water, sanitation and health.

Parents and children affected by crisis consistently name education as one of their top priorities. Because when children get an education, despite circumstances, whole societies benefit: education can boost economic growth, reduce poverty and inequality. Education also contributes to restoring peace and stability.

Despite the enormous benefits to children, education is often the first service suspended and the last service restored in crisis-affected communities.

Education accounts for less than 2 per cent of total humanitarian aid.

Funding is not the only thing that falls short: There are not enough trained staff to meet children's educational needs in emergencies, not enough data to get an accurate picture of the situation, and not enough coordination among all the actors involved in humanitarian response.

UNICEF works to deliver uninterrupted learning for every child affected by humanitarian crises.

We work to provide learning spaces that are safe, available, suitable for children and equipped with water and sanitation facilities. We work to make sure that while in school, children can learn, despite their circumstances. We provide teachers with training and learning materials. We help children develop skills to deal with disaster as well as reduce risk exposure. We work with teachers, parents and the community to assure that children get the care and love they need in these circumstances. We work with governments to include disaster risk reduction programmes in their planning.

UNICEF strongly advocates for the right to education and protecting education.

We call for protective learning environments and support governments as they endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration and Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict.

We carry out much of our work through global and national partnerships. Read about UNICEF's partnership with the Education Cannot Wait.

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Wars, conflicts and natural disasters spare no children. In fact, children suffer the most. In countries affected by emergencies, children often lose their homes, family members, friends, safety and routine. Without access to education, they are at risk of losing their futures.

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@concern worldwide

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Concern Worldwide is working in 15 countries to ensure girls attend school, are safe when they are at school and when they leave they take with them basic numeracy and literary skills. For more information please visit: https://www.concern.net/about/our-programmes/education/why-education-important To watch a video on schools rebuilding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhaLEh7T8Y4

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UN WOMEN

220 EAST 42ND STREET

NEW YORK, NY 10017

UNITED STATES

HeForShe[at]unwomen.org

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UNICEF

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UNICEF is committed to doing all it can to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in partnership with governments, civil society, business, academia and the United Nations family - and especially children and young people.

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admin@unwomen.org.au
(02) 6185 0010

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Emma Watson
PO Box 68162
London
N1P 2AL
United Kingdom

Note: Read by her staff

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6 things stopping girls from receiving education.

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International Development Agency, Children's Charity Organization - Plan International Canada

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Plan International Canada strives for a just world that advances children's rights & equality for girls. Get involved & donate, sponsor a child, buy a Gift of Hope or join us on social media.

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(Dakar) - Millions of pregnant and married adolescent girls across many African countries are being denied their education because of discriminatory policies and practices, Human Rights Watch said today, on the Day of the African Child. More than 49 million girls are out of primary and secondary school in sub-Saharan Africa, with 31 million of them out of secondary education, undermining their rights and limiting their opportunities.

Early marriage and teenage pregnancy are significant factors. In sub-Saharan Africa, 40 percent of girls marry before age 18, and African countries account for 15 of the 20 countries with the highest rates of child marriage globally. The region also has the world's highest prevalence of adolescent pregnancies. In 14 sub-Saharan countries, between 30 and 51 percent of girls give birth before they are 18. Cultural or religious beliefs often stigmatize unmarried, pregnant girls, with the result that many pregnant girls are forced into early marriages.

"The African continent has one of the world's highest rates of adolescent pregnancy, but many governments insist on tackling this social and public health challenge by punishing girls and jeopardizing their future," said Elin Martínez, children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Governments should focus on helping girls prevent unintended pregnancies and support their efforts to stay in school."

Although most sub-Saharan African countries have made commitments to guarantee compulsory primary and lower-secondary education for all children, many exclude or expel pregnant girls and young mothers from school.

Tanzania and Sierra Leone are among the sub-Saharan African countries that have harmful policies and practices that discriminate against pregnant and married girls, Human Rights Watch research shows. In Tanzania, Human Rights Watch found that school officials conduct pregnancy tests and expel pregnant students. Nineteen-year-old Rita, from northern Tanzania, said she was expelled when she became pregnant at age 17. "Teachers found out I was pregnant," she said. "I found out that no student is allowed to stay in school if they are pregnant ... I didn't have the information [sexual education] about pregnancies and what would happen."

Some countries, including Cameroon, South Africa, and Zambia, have adopted "re-entry" policies so that adolescent mothers can return to school after giving birth. However, even if governments have these policies, school officials often fail to carry them out adequately or at all. Young mothers frequently lack support to re-enroll due to school fees and related costs, limited support from their families, stigma in school, and a lack of affordable childcare and related early childhood services.

Many adolescent girls become pregnant because they lack the information needed to make informed decisions about their sexuality, family planning, and their reproductive health, while others are coerced into sex and require protection and access to health services and support. According to the United Nations, 80 percent of women ages 15 to 24 who have HIV globally live in sub-Saharan Africa and across the continent, and girls aged 15 to 19 are five times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys.

Sexuality and reproduction are often not included in the national school curricula. In a handful of countries where they are included in HIV awareness or "life skills" programs or subjects, teachers are frequently unwilling to teach these subjects because of the sexual and reproductive health content, or due to constraints on teaching time and resources.

All African governments have made a commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals to guarantee gender equality and universal access to free primary and secondary education for all children by 2030. The African Union has recognized the importance of ending child marriage, understanding that it is a major impediment to regional development and prosperity, and of eliminating all forms of gender-based violence and discrimination.

African governments should guarantee that girls have equal access to free quality primary and secondary education and support to stay in school, Human Rights Watch said. Governments should reverse harmful policies and practices that stigmatize girls, including forced pregnancy testing and regulations that allow for the expulsion of pregnant or married girls. Governments should also adopt laws that clearly set 18 as the minimum marriage age for boys and girls.

They should also adopt clear guidelines that instruct schools to re-enroll young mothers, provide support services in schools, and ensure that young mothers have access to early childhood services. Governments should also ensure that all children have access to age-appropriate, comprehensive sexuality, and reproductive education. Where possible, school-based services should be connected to youth-friendly health services to ensure that adolescents receive impartial, nonjudgmental information.

"Governments have the prime responsibility to ensure that girls access free primary and secondary education, without facing stigma and discrimination," said Martínez. "All governments should scrap policies that exclude pregnant or married girls, and put in place special measures to ensure that all adolescent girls can go to school."

In Girls' Own Words

Malawi
In Malawi, roughly half of all girls marry before age 18. Between 2010 and 2013, 27,612 girls in primary and 4,053 girls in secondary schools dropped out due to marriage. During the same period, another 14,051 primary school girls and 5,597 secondary school girls dropped out because they were pregnant.

Girls told Human Rights Watch that marriage interrupted or ended their education, and with it their dreams to be doctors, teachers, or lawyers. Many said that they could not return to school after marriage because of lack of money to pay school fees, childcare, flexible school programs or adult classes, and the need to do household chores. Others said that their husbands or in-laws would not allow them to stay in school.

Kabwila N., 17, said she left school in standard eight at age 15 because of poverty. She said she could not go back to school because she felt ashamed about her pregnancy: "I would not want to go back to school because I started having sex with my boyfriend while at school. I am not fit to go back."

South Sudan
In South Sudan, 52 percent of girls marry before their 18 th birthday. According to UNESCO, over 1.3 million primary-school-age children are out of school, and the country has the world's lowest secondary school enrollment rate, at four percent.

Mary K., of Yambio County, said: "My father refused me to go to school. He said it is a waste of money to educate a girl. He said marriage will bring me respect in the community. Now I have grown up and I know that this is not true. I cannot get work to support my children and I see girls who have some education can get jobs."

Anyier D., 18, said that her uncles forced her to leave school at 14 in 2008 to marry an old man she did not know: "I would wish to return to school even if I have children. People think that I am happy but I am not because I don't have an education. I don't have something of my own and I am only cleaning offices. If I had gone to secondary school, I would get a good job."

Tanzania
In Tanzania, fewer than a third of girls who complete primary schooling complete lower-secondary school, and over 15,000 girls drop out annually due to pregnancy. Human Rights Watch found that in some cases adolescent girls dropped out of lower-secondary school due to sexual exploitation and violence by teachers.

Joyce, 17, from Shinyanga, said: "There are teachers who engage in sexual affairs with students - I know many [girls] it has happened to ... If a student refuses, she is punished ... I feel bad ... even if you report the matter it won't be taken seriously. It makes us feel unsafe. Three girls dropped out because of teachers and sex in 2015."

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Africa: Make Girls' Access to Education a Reality

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Millions of pregnant and married adolescent girls across many African countries are being denied their education because of discriminatory policies and practices, Human Rights Watch said today, on the Day of the African Child.

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10 Worst Countries In The World For Girls To Receive Education

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10 Worst Countries In The World For Girls To Receive Education

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Despite the plight of more than 200 abducted Nigerian schoolgirls grabbing the world's attention, there remains insufficient focus on the wider issues of education and gender politics in Africa's most populous country.

Nigeria has the highest number of children out of school. Of the 57 million youngsters worldwide who are not receiving a formal education, more than 10 million live in Nigeria - and in the current climate that number is rising.

The majority of non-attendees are girls, mainly in the majority-Muslim north. Of those fortunate enough to enrol, less than two-thirds complete primary school and even fewer girls finish secondary school.

In regions where women have a lower social status, many parents opt to send their girls to work in markets rather than to school. A lack of education vastly reduces a child's chances of escaping poverty and has led to many girls becoming wives before their 16th birthday.

The bride price a family can command for their daughter is seldom linked to her educational achievement, so some parents see no incentive in sending their girls to school. These worrying attitudes are exacerbated by some religious leaders, who argue that educating girls is un-Islamic.

The anti-poverty charity ActionAid has been challenging such beliefs in northern Nigeria for years. Working with local communities and religious leaders, our team has helped to promote girls' education and show how the Qur'an positively values their schooling.

We are pressing for the recruitment of more female teachers, since Muslim parents are likelier to send girls to school where their teacher is a woman. We have seen how the construction of sanitation facilities, particularly separate lavatories for girls, has encouraged many pupils to stay in school.

Social attitudes are slowly changing in parts of the north, but so much more can be achieved with greater investment. Additional funds have not been forthcoming, however. Despite recently overtaking South Africa as the continent's biggest economy, Nigeria invests less in education than almost any other country in Africa.

There are two key indicators of good practice in education expenditure: governments should spend 6% of gross domestic product, and about 20% of their budget, on schooling. Nigeria spends just 1.5% and 6% (pdf) respectively in those areas. Based on Unesco calculations, there is scope for the government of Nigeria to more than treble its education spending.

More funds for education could also be raised if the country expanded its tax base, axed unnecessary tax holidays for foreign investors, and challenged aggressive tax avoidance.

Additional spending on schools would be transformative for Nigeria, where a third of the 140 million-strong population is aged between 10 and 24.

Sadly, the tide has been rushing the other way. The government has shut several schools amid the growing panic over Boko Haram. But this move has, in effect, only played into the hands of the Islamist extremists. President Goodluck Jonathan should instead focus on bolstering security at schools and keeping buildings open.

As well as calling for decisive action to bring back our girls, we should push Nigeria to invest more in schools, take a tougher stance on student security, and work harder at closing the gender gap in education. Communities need to be persuaded that educating girls is vital, and reassured that schools are safe enough to attend.

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Nigeria's girls and the struggle for an education in the line of fire | David Archer

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Despite the plight of more than 200 abducted Nigerian schoolgirls grabbing the world's attention, there remains insufficient focus on the wider issues of education and gender politics in Africa's most populous country. Nigeria has the highest number of children out of school.

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World book student

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the world book web site offers an encyclopedia

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and curriculum guides. world book is publisher of the world book encyclopedia.

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The World Book web site offers an encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, homework help, study aids, and curriculum guides. World Book is publisher of the World Book Encyclopedia.

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Britannica Student Middle School

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Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date and age-appropriate information resource for Primary, Middle and High School.

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presentation ideas for students - Google Search