in reading charlotte’s blog post today, i discovered that today is blog action day.

charlotte was the very first person to sponsor me for my recent half marathon on behalf of unicef’s born free campaign, so i’d like to take the opportunity to pay it forward. she’s posted about the links between poverty, aids and women in her native south africa, and has suggested “the girl effect” as an organisation which can help effect change.

and so i’m calling attention to it here as well. “the girl effect” is a foundation which seeks to effect large scale change through raising the standard of living of the 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world.

a few facts about the girl effect:

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.

• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

yet for every developmental dollar spent, girls receive less than one half of one cent.

“if the goal is health, wealth, and stability for all, a girl is the best investment.”

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