the girl effect

i am joining in the blog-o-sphere's campaign to raise awareness about the girl effect

if girls are supported to make a difference in their world they can change the world

Girls like Sunchita can help their families. This means a change in a girl's life helps a boy, like Sunchita is helping her brother. It helps her parents, they don't have to commit to such labour intensive work in their aging years.

Girls like Sunchita lift their communities out of poverty and the break the cycle of disadvantage.

Girls like Sunchita could be the ones to shift paradigms, to provoke change, to allieviate suffering.

If Girls like Sunchita go on to have families they will empower their children to live under different thought patterns, they will change the world their children grow up in. They will change the world.

Our family sponsor a girl, Lipi,who like Sunchita, lives in Bangladesh.

We chose her as a child to sponsor because she was the same age as our eldest child, Eila. Eila is now in year 6, her final year at primary school and will be going to Intermediate next year. She is acheiving in all areas of her schooling above her age group. She is a strong healthy girl.

Lipi on the other hand is in year 3 at her school... She has to collect water and help with the stock and this gets in the way of her schooling. She is small and thin.

As Eila is advantaged by growing up where she has the priviledges she does, Lipi is disadvantaged purely by where she was born

Interestingly after i had written the bulk of this blog post i recieved a progress letter from Lipi. She is connected by World Vision to us... but she is connected by being a young woman, growing into a world of uncertainty and change, just as my girls are. But with the gift of knowledge and mastery of the written word and mathematics Eila's possibilities are so much wider.

Is this fair?
Is this right?
Is this appropriate?

No.
No
No

But it is what it is..

If Sunchita can be a role model, girls like Lipi may see another way and be able to reach for that path.

Please support the girl effect by blogging about it follow this link to make that happen or