On this Day of the Girl, we reflect on a girl’s right to a safe, educated, and healthy life, and we celebrate girls becoming empowered leaders for change.
Research by UNICEF shows that when investment is made to girls’ secondary education, lifetime earnings of girls dramatically increase, national growth rates rise, child marriage rates decline, child mortality rates fall, maternal mortality rates fall and child stunting drops. Despite this, there remain challenges that many girls face in childhood and adolescence for girls to access education. Globally, UNESCO reports 129 million girls are out of schools. In countries affected by conflict, girls are twice as likely to be out of school.
Empowering girls through access to education all year round
Our work is committed to providing girls with access to quality education so they can exit poverty. We partner with women-led organisations across the globe to achieve this, adapting programmes to respond to unique barriers to education within each community.
Migrant girls’ education in the UK
In the UK, we have been researching why migrant girls are falling through the cracks in education. Our recent report explores what this means for migrant girls and what could be done about this.
A key difficulty for migrant children to access education is the navigating the complex school application process that requires high levels of English and understanding of the UK education system. For migrant girls, being out of education additionally means being at a greater risk of sexual violence and exploitation. These girls may also face additional difficulties like having domestic or family-care expectation that boys may not.
Within our report, we made recommendations for local authorities to improve access.
For example, local authorities committing to; understand, plan and improve newly-arrived children’s integration into mainstream education; to recognising migration is a gendered experience; and to expedite the school admission process for recently arrived migrant children.
Scholarships for girls’ education
Globally, WONDER provide scholarships to women and girls who may otherwise not access school due to fees from tuition, textbooks, uniforms and more. These scholarships encourage the female leaders of today and tomorrow across the globe, remind women and girls of their own value and worth, and give women and girls the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.
This works is supported by the Thrive Fund, a community of monthly donors providing life-changing scholarships.
Supporting girls through mentoring
In all of our education programmes, we support our partners to develop mentoring between students and trained staff or volunteers. Mentoring plays a key role in empowering girls to succeed in both their education and personal development goals. With their mentor, girls are able to develop soft skills such as time management, teamwork, and problem solving.
Author: Becky Lee
