International Day of the Girl October 11, 2015

We are in an era obsessed with change. Change of energy. Change of resource management. Change of laws. Individuals are encouraged to change themselves in order to change the world. A world that is broken by poverty caused by wars, famines, dictatorships and natural disasters. International Day of the Girl is aimed at empowering adolescent girls (ages 10-19) to be the leaders for the solution of poverty around the world.

Girl Effect is an organization that aims to let girls be heard and empowered through their “The Girl Declaration” program. They asked 508 adolescents girls in 14 countries what they need to “have a chance to reach their potential.” Through listening, Girl Effect made five goals to help end poverty by enhancing girls: education, health, safety, economic security and citizenship. Each of these goals is partnered with 3 or 4 targets to help attainability be a realistic possibility. (check out www.girleffect.org/2015 for more info). For example, to combat the health problems related to 13 million adolescent girls giving birth each year in developing countries, Girl Effect aims to cut number of girls that become pregnant in half by 2030 for girls up to 18 years old. This is the same year that they hope to end child marriage as a part of their citizenship goal. 25 world leading organizations are backing this declaration up, however, it is going to take lots of work and commitment to change the tides of discrimination against girls around the world.

Ethiopia is just one place where change is drastically needed as Girl Hub Ethiopia published in a recent report (www.girlhub.org) with the following information gathered from Central Statistical Agency, World Bank, Ministry of Education, United Nations, ICF, and UNDP.  It was projected that in 2012, 9.9 million of the country’s 84.7 million population (or 12%) would be adolescent girls. That number has only continued to grow in the last couple years. In the same year Ethiopia would rank as one of the top ten poorest counties with 72% of the population living on less than $2 a day. Today my teacher friends calculated that they make $3.10 a day. Overall Ethiopia is also one of the least urbanized countires in the world with 84% of the population living in rural areas.  40% of girls are literate, mostly due to the fact that 1 in 2 children won’t finish primary school ( grades 1-8) and only 1 in 3 girls will attend secondary school (grades 9-10). This leads to unemployment, early marriage and early motherhood. Where young females have an 11% unemployment rate compared to the 4% of their male counterparts. The Amhara region median age for females in marriage is 15 while the overall populations reports that 41% of 20-24 year olds were married at 18. Abductions in 2009 lead to 13% of the marriages.12% of girls between 15-19 have at least one child. How long are these going to be the trends?

I look around at the beautiful, talented, shy, outgoing, talkative, braided hair, scarf covered girls in my classes and pray that they aren’t part of these statistics. But that is highly unlikely. They have probably been abused in various ways, have been circumcised or know another female who has, and/or worked in activities that could be qualified as child labor. And what about the 2/3 of girls who aren’t in secondary school at all? How are they getting the help they need? Where are they getting the encouragement to break the trends? When will someone tell them they don’t need to continue in the downward spiral of poverty?

In honor of empowering and bringing awareness to self-esteem I did an activity with all my students on Friday. While change needs to happen for girls, that change will not come about with the help of males. Brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, teachers and classmates who have an impact on various parts of the girls’ lives, need to recognize and help empower females too.

After tying in a brief lesson on adjectives, I had all my students draw how they see themselves on a half sheet of filler paper. Are they tall, short, thin, large, strong, beautiful, happy, sad? What do they think they look like? Although this is the beginning of the year where directions and creativeness are slightly foreign, after a little bit they all got drawing. It was fun to see how they thought they looked. Next to my own picture on the board, I modeled three sentences one by one for them to complete:

1. I am ______ and _______.
2. I am not __________.
3. I am good at ____________.

I went around the room to translate and help students figure out what they are. This self-analysis isn’t something commonly done. Unlike a rote memorized answer students had to think about themselves and proudly write whatever they thought they looked like. I then had some students (females and males) share their sentences. We came to the conclusion that we are all different. We all have things that other people don’t have. We all have strengths that make us unique. And that it is okay if we aren’t good at something or don’t have something. One of my short students, comment that he didn’t want to be tall, because he was faster being small. We laughed, but it got everyone realizing that they are important individuals. They can be strong and good at things despite gender, age, or circumstances.

After classes, I walked home with three talkative girls, one of whom is in one of my classes. She got talking to the others girls about what we had done. While they talked like all teenage girls in conversation (like instagram hashtags without spaces), I couldn’t help but smile at the pieces I did catch. The others girls started to talk about themselves and what they were good at.  They also started to describe and talk about me. Through slightly slower Tigrigna we talked about how we each have good, beautiful parts to ourselves that make us unique, strong and special.

Change doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t need posters and big signs following it around. It comes, most often, in small ways that ripple out. My student got two others talking about their strengths. How many other students will tell other girls that they come into contact with to look for what they are good at? It takes lots of people around the world contributing in various ways to give the ripple power to become a wave. A wave to change the world of poverty through girls.