Boarding Schools for Girls

In an effort to enlist American students in the effort to increase girls educational opportunities throughout the world, Girls Learn International, Inc. (GLI) partners U.S. schools with schools in developing nations.

According to the programs website, GLI was established to accomplish the following objectives:

• Promote cross-cultural understanding and communication;
• Give girls the opportunity to explore issues affecting other girls in the context of global human rights.
• Train girls to be leaders and advocates for positive social change

The website reports that GLI "supports the empowerment of American students as they discover that through their own creative initiatives, dedication and passionate leadership, students can create real solutions that address the obstacles facing girls and women in developing countries and be leaders in the movement to affect positive change for girls and women worldwide."

The program has chapters in 47 U.S. middle schools and high schools and 27 partner schools in developing nations.

Labels: girls education, international

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Julia Bolz, an attorney from Seattle, Washington, has become a strong advocate for girls education in Afghanistan. A Jan. 3 article by Hal Bernton of McClatchy Newspapers provided the following information about Bolz's school-building efforts:

In the past seven years, Bolz has raised money to construct 19 new schools and repair more than a dozen others in Balkh province in northern Afghanistan. Those schools, now operated by the Afghan Ministry of Education, serve nearly 18,000 students, most of whom are girls.

Next year, Bolz's organization, Ayni Education International, plans to spend about $600,000 building, expanding and maintaining schools as well as operating two teacher training centers.

Bolz, who no longer practices law, spends part of the year in the U.S. tapping a fundraising network that ranges from Seattle schoolchildren to the National Geographic Society, and part of the year in Afghanistan rallying community support.

Labels: girls school, international

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A Dec. 11 article on the website of Ghanian radio station Peace FM reported that girls in the Ghana's Nanumba District have organized in an effort to gain greater access to educational opportunities:

A girls club called the Nanumba Stop Violence Against Girls, has called for some interventions by government and stakeholders to overcome some of the challenges confronting girls in school.

This includes more female teachers in the Nunumba District to serve as role models and mentors to inspire them for more laurels in life. &

The girls said inadequate female teachers in schools affected their academic performances because they lacked role models and mentors to empower them.

They appealed to Teacher Training Colleges to consciously use favourable admission quota for prospective female students to increase the intake of female students.

The girls added that district assemblies should sponsor more girls into teacher training colleges.

The government and the Ghana Education Service (GES) should also provide enough resources and incentives in schools at all deprive areas to attract female teachers to accept postings to those areas.

Labels: education, international, ghana, girls

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The students of one of New York's most successful girls' schools hosted a special guest Sept. 21, when the queen of Jordan paid a visit. Darragh Worland reported on the queen's visit to East Harlem's Young Women's Leadership School in a Sept. 27 article on the website Tonic.com:

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan ... who has been UNICEFs Eminent Advocate for Children since 2007, joined UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman to discuss the role education plays in improving childrens lives.

For the past nine years straight, every single graduate of the Young Womens Leadership School, the nation's first girls-only public school, has been admitted to institutes of higher education. In her address to the students, Queen Rania emphasized the need for the young leaders to pay it forward.

I want you, girls with voices, to speak up and shout out for girls whose cries fall silent, said HM Queen Rania. I want you to fight for them, as others are fighting for you. I want you to pull up another girl, and help her stand tall and strong. I want you to be great, and inspire greatness in others.

Labels: international, girls, private school

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In her Sept. 29 article on the website Tonic.com, Katherine Gustafson reported that attendees at the recently completed annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative had made a number of commitments that could significantly improve the lives of women and girls.

The following were three of the commitments that Gustafson cited:

• Pharmaceutical giants Merck and Qiagen have launched a new project to prevent cervical cancer by providing at least 1.5 million girls and 1.5 million women access to HPV vaccines and HPV DNA tests.
• Sustainable Health Enterprises will make sure one million girls and women in Africa get access to cheap, environmentally friendly sanitary pads and education on health and hygiene by 2012.
• Plan USA and partners are taking on a three-year project to train 140 adolescent Ghanaian girls in journalism and media production to help them speak out against gender discrimination.

Labels: international, conference, HPV

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An Aug. 26 editorial in The Business Times argues that educating girls and women should be part of a global strategy to increase quality of life and decrease problems such as terrorism, human trafficking, and poverty:

The oppression of women is not just a women's issue; it's a stability issue, a security issue and an equity issue, says U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

It is also a human rights and economic issue, we might add. It has been observed by counter-terrorism experts that countries that nurture terrorist groups tend to be the same societies that marginalise women. So, helping to educate and raise the status of women in those societies would be of global security interest.

Meanwhile, women also represent the best hope for fighting global poverty. ... Larry Summers, when he was World Bank chief economist, wrote that "investment in girls' education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world."

A member of the Singapore Press Holdings group, The Business Times describes itself as "as South-east Asia's leading business daily, [which] brings to its readers each day a comprehensive and concise package of corporate, financial, economic and political news, analysis and commentary."

Labels: education, international, girls

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