Girl Effect

Yesterday I got the chance to check out a photo exhibit at Nike about the Girl Effect, the idea that changing a girls live can radically change not only her life but those who live around her, her parents, siblings, friends, and community. I've posted their video on my blog before, but if you want to see it again check it out on YouTube.

Here are some pictures from the event:

[Inside these four walls, girls learn there is something wrong with normal.]

[Let's See Some ID]

[Illiteracy Does Not Look Good On A Resume]


[...And Pregnancy Doesn't Look Good On A Little Girl]

[The Face of HIV Is Increasingly Young and Female]

[A Nice Place to Work Would Be Nice]

[The Check Is In The Mail, But It's Going To Your Brother]

[Adolescent Girls Aren't Just "Future Women"]

[Laws Were Made To Be Enforced]

[She Should Be A Statistic]

[Everyone Gets On Board Or We're All Overboard]

The Facts Don't Lie:

• 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.
• Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world.
• More than one-quarter of the population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and young women ages 10 to 24.
• The total global population of girls ages 10 to 24—already the largest in history—is expected to peak in the next decade.
• 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.
• One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15.
• 38 percent marry before age 18.
• One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing countries become mothers before age 18; 14 million girls aged 15 to 19 give birth in developing countries each year.
• In Nicaragua, 45 percent of girls with no schooling are married before age 18 versus only 16 percent of their educated counterparts. In Mozambique, the figures are 60 percent versus 10; in Senegal, 41 percent versus 6.
• A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their husbands as were girls who married later.
• Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. Compared with women ages 20 to 24, girls ages 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15 to 19 are up to twice as likely, worldwide.
• 75 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds living with HIV in Africa are female, up from 62 percent in 2001.

Powerful stuff. What are you doing to help make the world a better place for girls?