Why education?
Our sentiment is perfectly captured in the paragraphs below from UNICEF:
"Education is a fundamental human right: every child is entitled to it. It is critical to our development as individuals and as societies, and it helps pave the way to a successful and productive future. When we ensure that children have access to a rights-based, quality education that is rooted in gender equality, we create a ripple effect of opportunity that impacts generations to come.
Education enhances lives. It ends generational cycles of poverty and disease and provides a foundation for sustainable development. A quality basic education better equips girls and boys with the knowledge and skills necessary to adopt healthy lifestyles, protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making as they transition to adolescence and adulthood. Educated adults are more likely to have fewer children, to be informed about appropriate child-rearing practices and to ensure that their children start school on time and are ready to learn."
Why school feeding programs?
School-based meals have been shown to increase school performance (for one example, click here). The reasons are twofold: better nutrition yields higher achievement, and meal offerings decrease absenteeism through incentivizing attendance. Greater academic success leads to enhanced economic growth and development in both personal and public ways.
Why a focus on girls and young women?
"The best way to fight poverty and extremism is to educate and empower women and girls."
-Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in Half the Sky
The support of women in developing countries is key to breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and oppression. So we want to start young. Let's get girls into schools, help keep them in school, and give them the same tools for success and achievement as their male counterparts receive so that they can create their own bright future. This will result in more empowered women, women who have more control over their reproduction health, women who have greater fiscal independence, and women who are less likely to be the victims of violence and sex trafficking.
If you have not yet read Half the Sky, do so. It will open your eyes in a powerful, positive way.
