TBD on Ning
10 Reasons to Educate Girls in a Developing World
FROM: skirt.com
Karin Ronnow is a writer and editor who has traveled extensively with Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute, which promotes education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. She has authored two volumes of “The Journey of Hope”—publications detailing the people and places touched by CAI’s remarkable efforts— and is at work on a third. She lives in Montana with her husband, their college-aged daughter and two dogs.
1. “If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community,” says Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, quoting an old African proverb.
2. An educated girl will bring home what she’s learned, teaching her family about sanitation and nutrition, reading the newspaper aloud and even passing along basic reading skills.
3. Girls who are attending school are less vulnerable to domestic violence, rape and slavery.
4. The children of literate women dedicate more hours each day to their studies than children of illiterate mothers. They also stay in school longer.
5. Studies show that a girl’s chances for a better, healthier life and healthier children increase dramatically if she goes to school.
6. Educated girls grow up to be educated mothers who want their own children— including daughters—to go to school. “Although men help promote education, it is really women who value what education can do and carry on the tradition in society,” Mortenson says.
7. In many countries, women are responsible for any crops their family grows. Educated women are more productive and more efficient farmers, which leads to increased crop yields and declines in malnutrition.
8. Educated mothers are reluctant to let their children join violent extremist movements such as Al Qaeda. The greatest fear of extremist groups is “not the bullet, but the pen,” Mortenson says.
9. Education promotes more representative, effective government. Educated girls are able to read ballots and make their own decisions about which candidates to vote for. They are more likely to participate in political discussions, meetings and decision making, and their participation makes government institutions less corrupt and more responsive.
10. “If the girls aren’t educated, nothing will really change,” Mortenson said. “We can drop bombs, we can build roads or we can put in electricity. But unless the girls are educated, the world won’t change.”
Karin Ronnow is a writer and editor who has traveled extensively with Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute, which promotes education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. She has authored two volumes of “The Journey of Hope”—publications detailing the people and places touched by CAI’s remarkable efforts— and is at work on a third. She lives in Montana with her husband, their college-aged daughter and two dogs.
1. “If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community,” says Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, quoting an old African proverb.
2. An educated girl will bring home what she’s learned, teaching her family about sanitation and nutrition, reading the newspaper aloud and even passing along basic reading skills.
3. Girls who are attending school are less vulnerable to domestic violence, rape and slavery.
4. The children of literate women dedicate more hours each day to their studies than children of illiterate mothers. They also stay in school longer.
5. Studies show that a girl’s chances for a better, healthier life and healthier children increase dramatically if she goes to school.
6. Educated girls grow up to be educated mothers who want their own children— including daughters—to go to school. “Although men help promote education, it is really women who value what education can do and carry on the tradition in society,” Mortenson says.
7. In many countries, women are responsible for any crops their family grows. Educated women are more productive and more efficient farmers, which leads to increased crop yields and declines in malnutrition.
8. Educated mothers are reluctant to let their children join violent extremist movements such as Al Qaeda. The greatest fear of extremist groups is “not the bullet, but the pen,” Mortenson says.
9. Education promotes more representative, effective government. Educated girls are able to read ballots and make their own decisions about which candidates to vote for. They are more likely to participate in political discussions, meetings and decision making, and their participation makes government institutions less corrupt and more responsive.
10. “If the girls aren’t educated, nothing will really change,” Mortenson said. “We can drop bombs, we can build roads or we can put in electricity. But unless the girls are educated, the world won’t change.”
Tags: education, educators, teachers
Views: 15
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by LyndaAndLab on
-
This is such a wonderful list! With education comes feelings of pride and accomplishment, new and positive feelings for girls and women in many parts of the world. With a feeling a self worth, girls and women will see value in what they do. In many parts of the world, women in developing counties are starting businesses, with the assistance of aid organizations and the internet. They make different kinds of jewelry, and a variety of textiles, as purses, clothing, scarves, baskets... In so many developing countries this type of hands-on education provides women with true independence.
-
Permalink Reply by Lori on
-
I picked up an awesome "freebie" magazine for women while in NC called SKIRT and found that list there. They are also online (skirt.com).
-
Permalink Reply by Amanda T. Wills on
-
What an incredibly thought-provoking post. Kudos to you!
-
-
For the girls in Afghanistan
I packed up my books and went to school today
To fill my head with subjects
Forbidden by a Taliban man I don't know,
But history tells me of whom I should be afraid.
He wants to keep me in a place
Of servitude, of complacency,
And a burqa I must wear.
He wants me to hide what he cannot stand,
My voice remain silent,
My mind in check,
Idle my hand.
Still I packed up my books and went to school today,
Facing the terrors of being beaten, or worse.
I thought the time had come for the freedom
To see beyond my veil,
To learn what my heart desires.
My survival
So depends on what they cannot take away.
My education is the key;
It is the lamp that lights my way.
I packed up my books to walk home from school today, and
From motorcycles, men with acid they did spray.
My clothes, my hands, my face, my dreams dowsed
In the name of Muhammad, but not the Muhammad to whom I pray.
I stayed home from school today.
Covered with bandages in a hospital bed I lay,
Healing my third degree burns
Heavy medicine to blunt the pain.
Forever my scars shall remind me of this horrendous crime,
But females in this land are 2 million strong.
We can battle this wrong
And we can fight for what is our human right.
I want to pack my books and go to school today, but
My yearning for now remains tucked away.
One day soon my sisters and my brothers will walk hand in hand with one another
In a peaceful place that celebrates diversity
And the Taliban man on a mission
Like my nightmares, will be a distant memory.
Years from now when my granddaughter sits on my lap and asks,
"Why, what is that there on your face?"
I will tell of the day
When the man tried to annihilate our desire,
Yet we rose up united and strong,
Marched right through the shadows of the terror and fright
With faces raised high
And into light.
-
-
Yes, I wrote this when it happened in November 08.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/12/afghanistan.acid.at...
-
Permalink Reply by kainsworth on
-
Thank you for sharing this.
© 2025 Created by Aggie.
Powered by
