The Girl Effect in Action

Do you remember when I mentioned in this post that "a study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community water and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than those that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women's participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effectiveness."


Exactly. Wanna know why? Because the women walk for hours to get the water, not the men. Because the children go with them or on their own to get the water, not the men. Because the women can't go to work, can't send their children to school, can't develop their community, while they walk these long hours to get the water.


Now imagine a well project supervised by women. They make sure it works, because the contrary would mean getting back to walking for hours to get the water. They can work, send their children to school with the money, develop their community. And in turn, when their daughters reach adulthood, they can expand, develop, enrich their community. They are empowered, and they are the force behind social change.


This, my friends, is called the Girl Effect. 

Our responsibility as developed countries

We don't often realize what it is to be a woman living in a developing country. We don't often realize here what it is not to have easy access to water - no it doesn't always come from a tap - medicine, or education.
But we are all connected. What happens to one of us happens to all of us.

It is our responsibility as human beings in developed countries to reach out to human beings in developing countries. To listen to them, and help them get the tools to get started and bring about change from within their community.

How can we do that? First of all, check out the Girl Effect website and their videos, and go read the fabulous blog posts participating in the Girl Effect campaign developed by Tara Sophia More at http://wiselivingblog.com/writing-your-post-about-the-girl-effect/

More?

Then spread the word: write a blog post in time for International Children's Day on November 20 and add your link to the Girl Effect campaign page, share the videos, post about it on Facebook, Twitter using the hashtag #girleffect.
Spread the love!

THANK YOU!