Educate a Girl - Change the World
Nearly 70 million children are denied access to quality education in developing countries—More than half of those children are girls. Hundreds of millions of women around the globe can’t read this sentence. Investing in the education of women and girls has shown to provide the greatest return on the investment of foreign aid dollars. Despite these facts, right now, investing in education is not a U.S. global development priority.
Global Action Week
This week kicks off Global Action Week, a world-wide effort to ensure access to Education for All. From the U.S. to the U.K., from Bangladesh to Brazil, education advocates from nations around the world are speaking out for Education for All. The theme of this year’s Global Action Week is ensuring access to education for women and girls.
The Global Campaign for Education, U.S. (GCE-US) and its partners are joining together in classrooms, online, and in town halls across the nation, to show their support for ensuring access to education for every child. Last week, GCE-US and its coalition partners RESULTS and CARE co-hosted Global Action Week events where nearly 1500 students participated in the GCE-US’ Blue Ribbon Campaign.
At the Vineland K-8 Center in Miami more than 1000 students completed the Blue Ribbon Campaign activity. Each student explained on their blue ribbon why education matters to them and to every child. “I want to grow up to be a doctor. Every child should be able to grow up to be what they want to be.” Hundreds of high school students from the MAST Academy organized an assembly or, “school town hall” to talk about how investing in basic education here in the US and abroad means a better world for all of us. Teopista Birungi, the founder and president of the Uganda National Teacher’s Union, who traveled from Uganda for these events, shared her personal story about how important education is to children in her country and in nations around Africa. “Access to education is the only way to both build security and fight poverty,” she said.
In Morton Grove, Illinois, right outside of Chicago, students and faculty at Parkview Elementary were so moved by the need to ensure access to education that the school mobilized a day of activities to celebrate Global Action Week, and more than ten classrooms participated in the Blue Ribbon Campaign. Children as young as five brought in books for students they’ve never met, food for families they don’t know, and toys for small children they may never see - but to whom the students said they already feel akin to. “Why do girls have to stay home while boys get to go to school?” one student asked.
Ribbons continue to flood into the GCE-US office in Washington, DC and events will continue in cities around the country, as students, teachers, and parents continue to join the Blue Ribbon Campaign and the call for Education for All.
As part of our Global Action Week efforts, GCE-US coalition member 10 x 10 Productions, a documentary film company focused on ensuring access to education for girls, has produced this powerful video—click here to watch the video.
Stay tuned for more updates in the exciting days and weeks to come!
Global Action Week - What you can do:
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Call on President Obama to make education a U.S. foreign policy priority by singing this petition. After you sign, post the petition to your Facebook and Tweet it to your friends!
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Show your friends you support the Blue Ribbon Campaign by changing your Facebook profile picture to a blue ribbon! You can use this photo.
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Post a comment on the GCE-US Facebook, telling us why you support educating women and girls around the world.
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Show your support for educating women and girls by joining the Blue Ribbon Campaign, and get your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to join you. Make a Blue Ribbon Chain, and send it to GCE-US ( instructions here).
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Tweet your support for educating women and girls, and use the hashtag “#gceus”
