Small & Gutsy Features Girls Matter

What does the phrase, “education should be a right, not a privilege” mean to you? If you believe that access to education is not a privilege, but a right as is the human rights law guarantees, then, why are  61 million children not in school, and most of them girls? Educating children no matter where they are is one of the biggest factors toward ending extreme poverty.

Education is not a privilege. It is, in fact, a human right. Education as a human right means: the right to education is legally guaranteed for all, without any discrimination; simply, there is an obligation to protect, respect, and fulfill the right to education. 

Just to share some background: International human rights law guarantees this right. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights was adopted in 1948, in Article 26: 'everyone has the right to education'.

Since then, the right to education has been widely recognized and developed by a number of international normative instruments elaborated by the United Nations, including the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960, CADE), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, CESCR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, CRC). The right to education has also been reaffirmed in other treaties covering specific groups (women and girls, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, Indigenous Peoples, etc.) and contexts (education during armed conflicts). It has also been incorporated into various regional treaties and enshrined as a right in the vast majority of national constitutions.

What I find so interesting is that, there are laws to protect the right to education although, we are often globally failing to fulfill this right, but there are no laws to protect the kind of education offered. In some cases, as in the U.S. there was an attempt in 2001 with the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into federal law in 2002, aimed at improving primary and secondary education which in many cases reduced rich curricula into rote standards where schools were evaluated. This changed slightly in 2015 where states had more leeway in determining their evaluative criteria, but it certainly didn’t address the issue of quality. There still remains a huge divide in the US with the quality of education.

We know girls suffer more statistically in terms of their access to learning that aids in their potential to both better themselves and their communities. I have always believed that it is far better to have an educated society as it creates good competition and offers the likelihood that individuals will be self-sustaining and will then improve the larger collective.

Girls DO MATTER and that became the charge of an incredible organization, Girls Matter as well as a friendship between the three Founders Melissa Deally, Malcolm Trevena and Megin Alverez that brought that dream to reality in 2017.

Girls Matter, celebrates girls by increasing their access which includes financial support to high school and post secondary education in developing countries; their vision is to support the education of girls in these countries which will in turn, increase the respect, visibility, and equality for girls in their communities.

Their 3 key program areas:

• Educate girls to complete high school. In select cases, consider educating girls to complete University.

• Support girls to attend classes all year long, by providing menstrual pads (currently they regularly miss 1 week of classes per month without this support).

• Through education, reduce the number of teenage marriages & teenage Moms

A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five.

Educated mothers are more than twice as likely to send their children to school, ensuring that her own girls are educated, creating a positive ripple effect for generations to come

A girl with an extra year of education can earn 20% more as an adult.

Educating Girls Will Break the Poverty Cycle!

As a recipient,  Evelyn Kawola who graduated from fashion & design school shared:

“Your support has pushed me to another level, I can see my future is going to be good. Girls Matter has really changed my life, taking me from being illiterate to literate.”

Their holistic approach supports the girls and their communities in both Uganda and Kenya:

 Their motto is: Breaking the Poverty Cycle
1 Girl, 1 Family, 1 Village at a time!

In developing countries, education comes at a cost. Families are caught in a quandary, torn between investing in schooling and affording essential needs. When affording necessities becomes a challenge, daughters are often married off, passing the responsibility of feeding them to a man they don’t know or love.

In a single year, an estimated 150 million girls are victims of sexual violence.

14 million girls under 18 will be married this year, 38 thousand today; 13 girls in the last 30 secondThe #1 cause of death for girls 15-19 is childbirth.

For more information, check out their website: https://girlsmatter.ca/