GlobalGiving.org: Girl Effect Fund

Help us decide next year's Girl Effect recipients!

The GlobalGiving Team — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:57:32 GMT

Happy Halloween!

We wanted to drop by and thank you for your continued support of the Girl Effect! Thanks to your generous giving, nearly $700,000 has been mobilized for girls’ education, safety and empowerment around the world. Today, girls in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Paraguay and Tanzania have an opportunity like never before to break the poisonous cycle of intergenerational poverty and start the Girl Effect.

We also wanted to take this opportunity to share some exciting news with you. Happening now though November 15, The Girl Effect movement has partnered with GlobalGiving to pioneer the first-annual Girl Effect GlobalGiving Challenge! There are thousands of wonderful, girl-focused organizations out there, and we wanted to find those doing the BEST work for girls so that we can fund and amplify their work.

Hundreds of organizations have undergone several phases of the challenge, and we’re now in the final round with a phenomenal pool of about 50. But, to pick our 12 winners, WE NEED YOUR HELP! Check out the challenge leaderboard and explore the different projects happening around the world for girls. When you find your favorite, vote with your wallet or share the project with your social networks. The six projects with the most unique donors will automatically win a one-year spot on our fundraising page. An additional six organizations will be chosen by a girl expert panel for their innovative girls’ programming and unique approach to unleashing the Girl Effect.

We hope you’ll join us during this exciting time to choose our newest class of girl-champ orgs.

Best wishes,

The GlobalGiving team

Girl Effect Fund Update July 2011

GlobalGiving — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:12:06 GMT

18-year-old Insana; Photo courtesy: BRAC

Dear Girl Effect supporter,

What a year it’s been! From winning the TEDx ‘Ads Worth Spreading’ award to surpassing 250,000 likes on Facebook, the Girl Effect movement is gaining momentum – and thanks to you, it’s not slowing down any time soon. Your generous contributions will have a powerful ripple effect for years to come.

In the past year, more than 6,000 girl champions just like you have raised over $425,000 to support girls around the globe. From Bangladesh to Kenya, Ethiopia to Paraguay, your donation is helping educate, equip, and empower thousands of girls to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and build a stronger world for everyone.

Your continued generosity is the heart and soul of the Girl Effect movement. Here’s a glimpse of what your contribution has helped to accomplish.

You helped 18-year-old Insana (photo attached courtesy of BRAC) receive training to become a tailor in her village of Kalampur, Bangladesh. She used the money she earned to re-enroll in school, and she is currently preparing for her Secondary School Certificate exam. In her free time, she is training other girls in her village with the hope of getting them back in school too.

Insana IS the Girl Effect, and your generous donation has helped her start a ripple effect that will forever change the lives of girls in her village.

In addition, your donation supported girls involved in these seven other projects:

Carolina for Kibera, Inc.: YOU provided a safe space and advocacy platform for adolescent girls living in the Kibera slum of Kenya. More than 900 girls have participated in the program to combat gender-based violence and discrimination.

Equality Now: YOU funded a workshop that provided legal training to adolescent survivors of sexual violence and human rights abuses.

Fundación Paraguaya: YOU taught girls in the Mbaracayu region of Paraguay how to build small-scale, agro-forestry enterprises to learn both technical and entrepreneurial skills for economic independence and regional poverty reduction.

Going to School Fund: YOU created a 15-part television series that will soon be aired on Indian national television to encourage and inspire India’s poorest girls to stay in school and learn entrepreneurial skills to solve social and environmental problems.

Harambee Center: YOU increased the daily income of 60 undereducated girls in Tanzania by providing the funding for a new sewing machine. The girls witnessed an income leap from $1 per day to $8 per day.

Save the Children: YOU helped girls in Bangladesh develop life skills and receive the support needed to stay in school thanks to your contribution to a community safe space. More than 42,400 girls have been reached through the program.

United Nations Foundation: YOU prevented a girl in Ethiopia’s Amhara region from becoming a child bride. In a region where more than 40 percent of girls marry before the age of 15, your gift helped one family break the cycle. This project has delayed marriage for more than 11,000 girls.

To continue supporting one of these projects, or to set up a monthly donation, please visit www.globalgiving.org/girleffect.

On behalf of all adolescent girls living in poverty, thank you so much for your donation and support. The clock is ticking for 250 million girls in the developing world, and thanks to the generosity of girl champions like you, more girls are breaking the poverty cycle and reaching their full potential.

Best Wishes,
The GlobalGiving team

Girl Effect Update, December 2010

Marisa Glassman — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 21:46:42 GMT

Dear Girl Effect Supporters,

Since we began facilitating the Girl Effect’s online fundraising, more than 8,500 donors like you have directed nearly $500,000 of much-needed funding to girls around the world.

We’d like to take this opportunity to share one girl’s story with you.

Meet Linet Nyanchama. At the age of 14, she began visiting a safe space in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks to the vital support of Carolina for Kibera. While many of her peers were at risk of being married at a young age, suffering early pregnancy complications, or contracting HIV/AIDS, Linet stayed in school and continued her education. Now 21, she works as a peer educator who facilitates girl-led discussion groups about reproductive health in her community.

According to Linet, “This project has seen me through school and is paying for my college education. And they have offered me a job.” She proudly earns a salary of 9,000 Kenya shillings – a dream to most Kibera residents. “I wish that the world could encourage more girls to realize their dreams.”

On behalf of girls like Linet, we’d like to thank you for your donation and support. The clock is ticking for 600 million girls in the developing world, and thanks to girl champions like you more girls are breaking the cycle of poverty and reaching their full potential.

If you’ve got any last-minute holiday gifts to purchase, there’s still time to make a donation to the Girl Effect in honor of your friends and loved ones using our print-at-home and email tribute cards.

Best wishes,
The GlobalGiving Team

PS - If you haven’t seen the newest addition to the Girl Effect video family, be sure to check out The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking.

Girl Effect Update, August 2010

GlobalGiving — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:48:15 GMT

A sample from Be!'s graphic novel

Dear Girl Effect Supporters,

Thanks to your continued generosity, The Girl Effect Fund has raised almost $250,000 on GlobalGiving for its beneficiary organizations.

The Girl Effect tells us that if we invest in a girl, she will do the rest.

The following project updates demonstrate this very principle. Here are a few ways that your investments in the world’s girls are paying off:

Inspiring Girls to Become Entrepreneurs In India, Be! uses multimedia to inspire girls to choose to become entrepreneurs and to solve the social, economic & environmental problems they face in their lives.

With your support, Be! is creating a graphic novel that features the character of Tara, a young girl who starts her own enterprise by renting solar lanterns to street vendors and residents in her community—and changes her life and her whole community in the process!

Life and Livelihood Skills for Young Women In Tanzania, BRAC will be hosting a life skills training course to help adolescent girls acquire skills like critical thinking, self awareness and negotiation and to learn about early pregnancy, early marriage, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. To prepare for these trainings, the life skills training course has been provided to mentors who will work with the adolescent girls.

In addition, BRAC has been hosting livelihood trainings that empower adolescents economically in fields such as tailoring, photography, food processing, computers, and agriculture.

BRAC is getting the parents and wider community involved in supporting the girls as well. Community involvement is occurring through forums with the girls’ mothers, parent meetings and workshops with community leaders.

Microfinance Groups Build Girls’ Savings In Bangladesh, BRAC is operating 50 girls’ groups being led by trained teenage leaders and mentors. In addition, microfinance groups are running and all of the members are saving with the program. Approximately 40% of members between the ages of 15 and 21 have borrowed from the program to invest in an income-generating activity.

As these projects show, when you invest in a girl, she will do the rest. Thank you for supporting girls through The Girl Effect.

Sincerely, The GlobalGiving Team

Girls at a Safe Space meeting in Bangladesh

Women at a microfinance meeting in Tanzania

Girl Effect Update, June 2010

GlobalGiving — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:04:24 GMT

Dear Girl Effect Supporters,

Thanks to your continued generosity, The Girl Effect Fund has raised more than $230,000 on GlobalGiving for its beneficiary organizations.

The Girl Effect tells us that if we invest in a girl, she will do the rest.

The following project updates demonstrate this very principle. Here’s a few ways that your investments in the world’s girls are paying off:

From mentoring to monetary stability in Bangladesh and Tanzania... In Bangladesh, BRAC’s girls’ clubs provide classes on topics from financial literacy to job training, are fueling girls’ futures by creating pathways to financial stability. So far, • 50 adolescent girls clubs are up and running; • 50 teenage leaders have been trained to mentor the girls; and, • about 2,000 girls have become active members in the program’s classes.

All 20 of BRAC’s clubs in Tanzania are in operation, serving about 580 girls. Starting in February 2010, the program began offering income generation courses which provide financial lessons the girls use when they take out microcredit loans to start their own businesses.

From facing abuse alone to standing with others in Pakistan... The Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund is a program of Equality Now that supports and publicizes strategically selected legal cases that represent the most common and significant human rights abuses of adolescent girls.

The campaign is currently assisting a girl in Pakistan with court proceedings related to brutal incest by her father. Encouraged by her mother and her mother’s family, the case began despite police attempts to discourage it. Despite a long, slow trial ahead of her, the girl is now living with her mother and her mother’s siblings and has just finished her 9th grade board exams. Equality Now plans to visit Pakistan to help provide support.

Turning basic science supplies to science stars in Uganda... At the end of 2009, the Harambee Center outfitted the St. Andrew’s Secondary School’s physics lab—which serves 200 girls—with 25 tables, 50 stools, and chemicals and tools required for studies related to the Uganda National Examinations.

Two of the students, Margret and Prossy, explain that this equipment has meant getting “more practice…more confidence, and…more morale.” Overall, the girls say, “We thank our generous donors for their continued support!”

Thank you for investing in The Girl Effect. We’ll be in touch soon with more updates on how you are helping change the world by changing the lives of girls.

Sincerely, The GlobalGiving Team

Girl Effect Update, September 2009

Marisa Glassman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:11:56 GMT

Hello Girl Effect Supporters,

It’s time for another update on all the exciting things that have been accomplished because of your generous contributions in the last few months. There has been a great deal of activity with the Girl Effect and its related projects, and this worthy cause continues to gain momentum as time goes on! The Nike Foundation’s girl-related efforts are mentioned in Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book, "Half the Sky," which is getting a large amount of press attention from venues that vary from morning news shows to The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In the last few months, we’ve added a new project to the beneficiary list of Girl Effect-related projects, we’ve had a few friends visit some of the projects and send us personal accounts of how things are going, and we’ve had quite a few of our existing projects expand in breadth and scope. Here are some examples: • The Harambee Center is the newest addition to the list of Girl Effect Fund beneficiaries. They are equipping science classrooms with labs for 200 girls in Uganda. Science courses and lab work is compulsory in Uganda, but until now most girls didn’t have equal access to equipment or labs. • Leah Ambwaya, a professional evaluator working with Excelsior, is visiting a number of GlobalGiving projects in Kenya this year, including Equality Now’s project, Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund. Despite her much more extensive description of the visit, her thoughts on Equality Now can be best summed up by her response to the question of what she would tell her friends about this project: “Incredible. You need to see this!” • The Berhane Hewan project, working in Ethiopia, is one of the first rigorously evaluated programs to delay the age of marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the success of the program, it is scheduled to expand into additional communities. Additionally, the message is spreading widely throughout Ethiopia; the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and the Population Council started a national campaign to raise awareness throughout Ethiopia.

Thank you for your continued support to these commendable causes. We have now raised more than $150,000 for Girl Effect-related causes, and due to your generosity and the amazing viral nature of the Girl Effect video, that number and its affects continue to grow.

Sincerely, The GlobalGiving Team

Girl Effect Updates from the Field, May 2009

Marisa Glassman — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:15:56 GMT

Dear Girl Effect Supporters,

Thank you for all of your help in making the Girl Effect the huge success that it has become! To date, the viral nature of this incredible topic and supporting video has helped raise more than $87,000 from more than 1,700 donations. Over the course of many months, the Girl Effect Fund has consistently received one of the largest numbers of unique donations of any project on the GlobalGiving site. We are proud to be a part of such an impactful and meaningful campaign, and want to thank you for your continued support.

With ten projects currently being supported by the Girl Effect Fund, there is a lot of great work to report on. The Fund is currently supporting projects run by BRAC USA, Carolina for Kibera, Inc., Equality Now, Fundacion Paraguaya, the Going to School Fund, Mercy Corps, Save the Children, and Technoserve. Here are some of the highlights from these projects’ most recent updates from the field:

• BRAC opened 4 adolescent clubs in Tanzania, where 100 girls can safely gather and discuss issues that are important to them with each other and with their mentors. • One woman near Nairobi was trained by TechnoServe and won a number of their competitions for seed funding. She lost her parents at a young age, and was working in a clothing factory to support her siblings and herself. Thanks to the training that she received, she now runs her own business in one of the local markets and has an employee. She now teaches other community members how to build their own businesses and do their own accounting. • Save the Children’s project staff will be working with a minimum of 5,000 girls and the financial sector in Bangladesh to develop safer savings and investment options for the girls. The project will explore both individual and group savings and investment mechanisms. • At the end of November, Carolina for Kibera, Inc. held its annual “CFK Day” in Kibera, with more than 5,000 youths in attendance. In a day of fun that went from 7am until 9pm, many of the youths participated in a community forum, a talent show, sports contests, and an award ceremony for emerging young leaders within the community. • The Going to School Fund is supporting a multimedia campaign - 13 movies, 50 books & 15 part radio series to inspire young people from underprivileged backgrounds to choose to become entrepreneurs to solve the social, economic and environmental problems they face in their lives. Attached here is one of the animation videos of the campaign.

Thank you for your support of all this wonderful work! We are very proud of the amazing work our partners on the ground are able to accomplish with the help of your continued, generous contributions.

Sincerely, The GlobalGiving Team

Attachments:

Ashima Tells You about Be! an Entrepreneur (FLV)