Why? a better world.

“86 million girls worldwide will not be in school today”

Increasingly, the face of global poverty is a female one.  It is the girl who cannot read and the mother who cannot write her own name.  But the face of hope is also female.  It is the young woman who teaches her sister how to write her name and the mother who sends her daughters to school.

Access to quality education is the best tool we have in the fight against global poverty.  By educating girls and women, they become more productive citizens, contribute more to the development of their communities and take their rightful place as equal members of society.

In Nepal, where the world’s highest mountains are home to some of the world’s poorest families, 1 out of 2 girls do not attend school and 75 percent of all women are illiterate. Together, this sisterhood or “didi-bahini” carries the heavy burden of poverty in Nepal. A disproportionate number of girls and women are under-educated or have very limited opportunities for schooling. Female literacy rates are well below that of males, in a country that is considered one of the poorest and least developed in the world, according to the United Nations.

Did you know that in Nepal …

The world’s highest mountains are home to some of the world’s poorest families, 1 out of 2 girls do not attend school and 75 percent of all women are illiterate.  Together, this sisterhood or didi-bahini carries the heavy burden of poverty in Nepal.

• Only about 25 percent of all females can read and write and just over half of all males are literate.
• Most children in Nepal do not complete secondary school.  Those who do are mainly boys.
• Rural public schools do not always provide quality education – good teachers are in short supply, many school buildings are in disrepair, and basic supplies are either inadequate or non-existent.
• The average adult earns only US$250 a year.
• The  political situation over the past 15 years has negatively impacted all rural communities.  Schools in particular have been hard hit.  A large number of schools had been closed down or suspended for long periods of time. Teachers had fled and many children can still be found working alongside their families instead of learning in the classroom.

What can be done,  a lot!

First, get involved, ask lots of questions…

• Education and literacy, especially for girls and women, are keys to breaking the cycle of poverty.  Try and support organizations working to achieve this.
• Encouraging and supporting just a few motivated individuals can provide the catalyst that brings positive change to a whole community.
• Life can be extremely difficult in countries such as Nepal but sometimes it takes very little, in western financial terms, to make a huge difference in a community.