Invest in a Girl, Save the World

The Girl Effect is a project that focuses on investing in girls to stop the cycle of poverty. Some of the facts from their website include:

•  When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.
• Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers.
• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
• Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school.
• Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls.

While their focus is on girls on a global level, I contend that we need to use the same principles nationally. We have a large portion of our girls who live in poverty. Girls in poverty, regardless of where they live, are at risk of repeating the cycle of poverty.

Invest in a Girl, Save the World.