FACT: As of 2016, at least 130 million school age girls worldwide were not enrolled in classes.-UNESCO
So, this happened.
“The extremists tried all their best to stop me, they tried to kill me and they didn’t succeed,” said Malala Yousafzai last week, after being named a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on girls’ education.
“Now this is a new life, this is a second life and it is for the purpose of education.”
The Nobel Peace laureate has been speaking out for girls and their right to education since getting shot by Taliban forces in 2012, as documented in the film He Named Me Malala (produced in part by Participant Media).
She has her work cut out for her.
Two thirds of the world’s 774 million illiterate people are women. Nearly one-fourth of women aged 15-24 living in developing countries—116 million girls—never completed primary school. Two million child marriages and teen pregnancies could have been avoided if all girls worldwide completed secondary school. These are just a few statistics facing girls and their (lack of) education today.
Here in the U.S., 51 percent of public school students are impoverished, and The Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington D.C., describes the U.S. as a country that appears to be caught in a “low-quality education trap” in which poor and minority girls disproportionately suffer.
Why you should care…
Less education = higher taxes. The good news is that U.S. high school dropout rates among young women have decreased from 8 percent to 6 percent since 2007. However, more girls are living in poverty or in low-income households than before the great recession. Poor parents who are poorly educated are more likely to have poor kids who are also poorly educated, continuing the cycle of poverty to the next generation. In other words, kids who have less access to education are more likely to need taxpayer-funded aid like welfare, Medicaid, and food stamps.
Homeless families make up a third of the total U.S. homeless population. Eighty-four percent of those families are led by single mothers, more than half of whom lack a high school diploma, making good jobs harder to find. Affordable housing saves taxpayers a huge amount of money, as a single homeless person living on the streets costs between $35,000-$150,000 a year per person (depending on the city) due to visits to the emergency room, mental health facilities and local jails.
More money: Educated women get higher-paying jobs. The number of women with a bachelor’s degree has nearly tripled since 1979 as more women have been encouraged to enter the workforce—and more women in the workforce means a growing economy.
…and what you can do.
For girls in the U.S.: You can also support organizations like Yes We Code, which is supporting young women and men from underrepresented backgrounds find jobs in tech fields. America’s Promise Alliance (started by many former U.S. presidents) offers ways for people to volunteer in their communities.
And around the world: Check out World Education’s #BuildUpGirls campaign and the Malala Fund, two organizations increasing awareness of the challenges that keep girls out of school. They’re also fundraising for girls’ and women’s education programs around the world.
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