"Education lays a foundation for vibrant lives for girls and women, their families, and their communities. It also is one of the most powerful levers available for avoiding emissions by curbing population growth" according to Project Drawdown, which ranks educating girls as the sixth most effective strategy for stopping and reversing climate change. Well-educated girls are the key to numerous economic and health-related issues including upward mobility, higher wages, diminished incidences of HIV/AIDS, and lower mortality rates.
The stories in this collection (see below) highlight some of the efforts that countries have made to increase access to education for girls. One story talks about a program in Egypt that offers educational workshops about gender identity and hopes to change gender norms like girls marrying early and staying in the home. In Zimbabwe, by providing sanitary pads and sex education they strive to reduce social taboos regarding females. Another story shows how educating women creates resilience when faced with climate disasters and schools that have opened in refugee camps see an increase in female participation rates, resulting in an improved society. This solution is one of the Drawdown Ecochallenge actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/educated-afghan-women-offer-economic-resilience-in-the-face-of-climate-change-and-conflict
Beth Murphy
PBS NewsHour
4 July 2018
Broadcast TV News / 5-15 Minutes
In Afghanistan, where climate change is drying up previously productive farms, female education has taken on a new importance. A recent Brookings Institution study found that for "every additional year of school a girl receives, her country is better prepared for, and better able to recover from climate disasters."
https://www.newsdeeply.com/womenandgirls/articles/2017/11/09/free-sanitary-pads-to-fight-school-dropout-child-marriage-in-zimbabwe
Sally Nyakanyanga
News Deeply
9 November 2017
Text / 800-1500 Words
Young women and girls in Africa face difficult stigmas when menstruating, as well as prohibitive costs to hygiene items and other resources, leading many of them to miss critical days at school and otherwise be left behind in society. Various non-profits and government organizations are working to change this and give girls an equal footing by providing sanitary pads to girls for free, in tandem with sex education and initiatives to debunk social taboos against periods.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/in-egypt-sowing-the-seeds-of-gender-equality
Elizabeth Stuart
The New York Times
22 January 2015
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Muslim women in Egypt are expected to marry young and to stay close to home, and if they do not, they can be subjected to abuse or heavy criticism by men in the household. Save the Children’s Choices program offers educational workshop sessions for boys and girls, ages 10 to 14, which help them explore gender identity. Through discussions, the program hopes to change gender norms.
https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2017/12/refugee-camp-classrooms-open-somali-girls
Tonny Onyulo
Al-Fanar Media
5 December 2017
Multi-Media / 800-1500 Words
Somali girls are rejecting traditional norms, refusing to marry early, and continuing their education at the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. At the camp they have access to primary, secondary, and some postsecondary education. “When the camp was established in 1991, girls made up only 5 percent of the total number of young people in education in Dadaab, according to the Lutheran World Federation. Today, female students account for almost 40 percent of those in school.”
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