You may have heard – we are running this little fundraising initiative called Workout for Water.
Maybe you’ve seen the video of the girls, one whose village has access to water and the other whose village doesn’t. Maybe you’ve scrolled past and thought, “Cool, I’ll totally donate to that”, but not wanted your mind filled with the obvious misery of that struggle for too long, so moved on. I get it! Anyone with an ounce of empathy (and a life to get on with) finds this stuff so damn hard to look at. Because frankly, we know we have it amazing and those images show just how hideous life is, and whatever we do, we are not going to eliminate the issue entirely… right?
So what’s the freaking point?
Do you want the good news, or the even better news?
Here’s the deal - girls who are educated beyond primary school make incredible differences to their communities:
- They run their households more efficiently, creating healthier homes
- They have learnt how to build economic activity for themselves and their family, meaning they have more money (because poverty is not cool)
- This economic activity leads to more opportunities for their community, building more stable societies around the world
- And finally, an educated girl creates harmony within a community, they have stronger social skills and support other women and children (extremely important in times of crisis or illness)
How do we know all this? Studies, probably conducted by educated girls.
So what’s the even better news, you ask?
These girls get educated, they can look after themselves and their families better, they become more valuable members of their communities. Nice, but the world is still in crisis right?
Well, an educated girl becomes an educated woman, and here’s where it gets really flipping awesome…
An educated woman marries later, has fewer children, has an increased ability to problem-solve, knows how to more sustainably use the land and has the knowledge and developed life skills to aid her community in times of serious crisis.
Here’s a checklist:
- Decreases contribution to overpopulation
- Is able to evolve a community’s economic endeavours without First World assistance
- Decreases impact on climate change through the sustainable agricultural methods
- Has more opportunities to help the rest of us save the planet!
If you watch our Ethiopia video, Tirukalem, the girl with water, has benefitted from the proximity of clean water – meaning laborious domestic duties don’t stop her going to school.
At the very least, she will go on to be more self-reliant and less of a strain on the planet, and at the most… who knows.
Just like we tell our daughters, as we educate them and send them off into the world, “You can be whatever you want to be.” And we believe they can, as long as they get the right education. Imagine if the same could be said for all daughters, everywhere?
IT STARTS HERE.
The key to enabling a girl to go to school is providing water and sanitation projects like the ones we are working towards. You fundraise = water is available = girls get educated = we save the world.
And if you’re interested in finding out more about this subject, check out DRAWDOWN and these cool links:
- Educating girls to end world poverty
- Bill and Melinda Gates’ annual letter and the economic benefits of extending girls secondary education
- UNICEF reports on educating girls
- Child marriage stats
