"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 lists educating girls as one of the most effective strategies for stopping 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. In one story, a nonprofit in Morocco offers after-school programs and tutoring to young women in the hopes that they will finish school and delay young marriages. In another, a school offers scholarships to indigenous girls in rural Guatemala - where 60 percent of indigenous women are illiterate. 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.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/world/africa/morocco-maryam-montague.html
Marjorie Olster
The New York Times
17 August 2018
Multi-Media / 1500-3000 Words
Project Soar is trying to get more young girls in Morocco to finish school, and it’s working. The nonprofit offers after school programs and tutoring to teenage girls, in hopes they continue their education and don’t get married at a young age. “This academic support has increased the passing rate for girls in Project Soar to 73 percent compared with the average passing rate of 44 percent for ninth grade girls in the Marrakesh region, according to the American Embassy in Morocco.” Around 475 girls have benefited from the project.
https://brightthemag.com/in-rural-guatemala-this-school-make-the-girl-effect-happen-kipp-maia-education-cbeabb429863?gi=4f2dab18964e
Emily Kaplan
Bright Magazine
23 May 2019
Text / 1500-3000 Words
The MAIA Impact School, inspired by New York City's well-known KIPP charter schools, gives scholarships to ambitious indigenous girls in Guatemala with the aim of "propel[ing] them from poverty and isolation into the most elite spheres of Guatemalan society." School administrators are gradually learning how to adapt the model to a new setting with new expectations and teachers.
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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