The Girl Effect: Ending Poverty Begins with… a Girl. Who Knew?

It’s a simple, yet profound concept. Investing in the education and ability of young girls in third world countries to earn a living will in turn make their lives and those of their brothers, sisters and communities better, thus ending poverty.

As I put my twin girls in bed last night, my daughter showed me a flip comic she had made on Post-It notes of two marshmallows playing together. As she flipped the pages, the marshmallows danced around together smiling. My other daughter showed me a cartoon she had drawn on the tray table next to their beds. (I was preparing to throw it out; they turned into their own personal whiteboard. What do I know about trash or treasure?) Each night, she draws a different scene; sometimes unique characters she has created from one of her original comic strips; sometimes pictures of herself and her sister. Sometimes just the dog… usually dressed as a ninja. I always take these opportunities to remind them how smart and creative they are and that they can do anything when they grow up. Just as I’ve told their two older brothers.

We take for granted here that naturally we raise our children – males and females – as equally capable and worthy of education, of our time and our energy. We let our kids be kids. To play, grow, develop and become adults in time. But in third world countries, girls are overlooked. Their births are unrecorded. They are uneducated – of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls. Thirty-eight percent marry before 18, and one half to one quarter of them will become mothers by then as well. And with complications from pregnancy the leading cause of death among girls 15-19, the odds are stacked against them.

Enter the Girl Effect, which takes me back to my first statement. This collection of advocates and campaigns for girls around the world is designed to invest in girls to not only improve their lives, but those around them, eventually ending a horrible cycle of poverty. A pretty lofty vision, but consider these facts from the website, which is the essence of what they mean by “the girl effect”:

• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

• Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers.

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.

You gotta check out these two videos that state all of this much more eloquently than I have. They’re great. Simple, engaging and to the point.

So how do we jump start the Girl Effect from here?
Simple. Give. Talk. Share. Talk some more. Do what works best for you.

I am a strong believer in investing in people in developing countries who want to make a difference for themselves and their families. Last Christmas, I gave my kids each $25 to donate to Kiva, a microlending organization that allows people like us to give loans to small businesses in developing countries. It’s such a cool concept and so simple. The kids all picked their loan recipients in various countries; sometimes groups and sometimes individuals. All four of our original loans have been repaid and we have reloaned to three more groups. Kinda cool to see how far we can make $100 go over time. And a great reality check for the kids. Whatever they would have spent the $25 on would certainly be a faint memory by now.

Hope you support girls everywhere to grow up to be leaders, business owners and great role models to the next generation of girls. I leave you with a great post by Lisa Bloom from the Huffington Post about how to talk to little girls. So hard to resist telling them how cute they are, but so much better to show them how smart they are, so the Girl Effect takes hold early.

Any favorite girl causes or posts you’d like to share?

The Girl Effect is described as the unique potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world.

*This week is focused on spreading the word about the Girl Effect globally. If you’d like to write a blog about the Girl Effect this week, we encourage you to visit Tara Mohr’s site, for all the details.*