Hope You're Ready, World!

Because there is a very powerful force just starting to come your way: GIRLS!

When I was young, my sister and I had these great posters in our playroom  - they said

Playing like a girl doesn't mean what it used to 

A girl's place... is anywhere she wants to be

I grew up with, and maintain, the staunch belief that being female should not and will not hold me back or prevent me from doing any single thing I want to do. I could be a teacher, a contractor, a mother, a doctor, an physicist, a ballerina. I could play any single sport I wanted to ... for goodness sake I did karate and synchronized swimming in the same season, for years. I still get incensed when I hear "female athlete" - she's an athlete, period. Whatever I wanted to do, as long as I was a hard worker, honest and stuck to it - I could do it. I have female and male role models and friends who taught me and continue to prove to me that there are no opportunities that can be dictated by whatever genitalia you happen to have. I have found this, in my world, to be true. I was one of the lucky few in this world. 

Around the world girls of all ages continue to be held back from school, from gainful and meaningful employment, continue to be oppressed through sexual violence, disproportionate levels of poverty and hunger, and through plain old discrimination. But it's starting to change. The wave is catching and people are working hard to make this world better for everyone, by making it better for girls ... it's 

THE GIRL EFFECT! 

Today marks the beginning of this year's Girl Effect Blogging Campaign! If you're a blogger, please participate and spread the word about The Girl Effect.

What is this 'Girl Effect' you ask? Basically it's this. Right now, girls around the world are just starting to become the powerhouses they should have the opportunity to be. They're just starting to have equal opportunities, just starting to become educated, to have fair, paying jobs and just starting to show the world what they're made of. And as a result, family sizes are getting smaller, allowing more children to go to school, allowing parents to have more food and water security for their children and themselves, allowing communities  to become more prosperous and increase the quality of living, allowing countries to run more effectively and fairly... you get the idea.

Here's what happens:

Ps, for you Girl Effect veterans, and people who like THAT video, they have lots of new videos, check em out.

I hear lots of you saying, what, and forget about the boys? NO. The point is to forget no one. Create institutions, traditions and rules that recognize the rights of all humans, not just those typically favoured.

Support organizations that address the issues that keep girls off the fast track. For example, microfinance organizations that give loans to women (and men) with business plans so they can have their own financial independence and provide for their families rather than depend on a man or parents. Like a love of my life: Kiva. Or organizations that address the ridiculous price girls and women pay for society's neglect of their basic health - death during childbirth (this is 2011, get with the program - that shouldn't be happening) or the fact that many girls around the world have to miss a week of school every month when they menstruate. No wonder they don't get ahead.

As an educator, obviously I want to see more girls in school around the world, and in higher levels of school. I have been blessed to be able to work with and support great organizations that believe in this goal too, such as Roots & Wings International in Guatemala and Malawi Girls on the Move. I believe if we can remove the barriers children around the world face when coming to school, the world will be a better place. Both girls and boys face a lot of issues such as the distances they must travel to school, the supplies they must bring (water, food, not to mention books, pencils and uniforms), the easily preventable illnesses such as worms and diarrhea that make them fall behind... so many. The thing is girls face all that PLUS a second rate standing in the eyes of many societies and families. In many places they become brides and mothers at ages when girls in Canada are still celebrating birthdays with single digit candles on their cakes.  In others, they become the only mother their siblings will know when parents are taken by HIV/AIDS. Or maybe they're simply left behind when parents can't afford to send all the kids to school. Whatever the case may be, we have to help countries, including our own - get girls into schools, staying in schools and succeeding in schools.

Girls are powerful, strong and deserve to have their rights taken seriously. Boys are powerful, strong and deserve to have their rights taken seriously. All we're asking for is that we make sure to pay attention to ALL people so that we can all work together to not just survive, but thrive.

And just in case I haven't convinced you let, I'll let these girls give it a shot. Here is the first graduating class of the first school built by Malawi Girls on the Move (which the University of Lethbridge Rotaract Club is so grateful to have been a part of!) performing a song they wrote, on their graduation day.

This IS the Girl Effect.