We met Winnie hanging around the video clubs in Liberia. She is vibrant, a girl who stands out, and she was beginning to realize that she could use her body to attract negative attention from men in exchange for money. We are now providing her skills and an education, so she can have better opportunities for herself then those offered outside of video clubs. We are thrilled at her progress!
73% of Liberian children are denied an education - over 80% of them are girls (UNESCO). A girl denied an education, is a girl on the street. It's a girl who's exploited and condemned to underemployment. The ripple of effect of this denial of her basic right is seen in the stagnation of her wages, her susceptibility to exploitation and disease, and even her children's future education.
Educating a girl changes, well, everything. We get Winnie and other girls off the street and into school in one of the world's most dangerous slums in the world in Liberia. We work with community leaders to identify the girls who are at the highest risk of being sexually exploited to ensure that education and opportunity, not exploitation and poverty, shape their lives. We pay tuition and provide them school lunch. We work with the school and community to make it impossible for them to fail.
Educating one girl changes, well, everything. Here's why: When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children. An extra year of primary school boosts girls' eventual wages by 10 to 20%. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25%. When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90% of it into their families. When we invest in girls we all win.
