Girl Power

In the early years of college, I wrote a paper about the spread of AIDS and made a pretty bold declaration:

In order to stop the spread of the disease, we need to stop focusing on drugs, treatment, protection and abstinence. We need to start empowering young women.

The paper (I can’t find it anymore) probably had a bunch of statistics to support my claim — I’m fairly sure I got a good grade — but statistics aside, the importance of young women in development has been an issue near and dear to my heart for several years.

The Girl Effect

Bronwyn Jones (my hero) recently linked to a short flash video that got me thinking this morning.

The message behind The Girl Effect project is simple: help raise the quality of life for one girl, and you’ll be creating an impact much larger than you had originally expected.

The rationale for The Girl Effect is simple: as primary caregivers, girls have a large impact on the livelihoods of their siblings, children, and villages. Educating young girls is a solid investment for the future of any society.

The imperative surrounding The Girl Effect is simple: adolescent girls are under-represented in international aid plans and statistics. Increasing their access to education, healthcare, employment training, and basic needs is key to effective development planning.

The question asked by The Girl Effect is much harder: how do we mobilize the international community to sit up and take notice that girls are an important part of global society? Not an easy question to answer for sure, but I’m sure projects like The Girl Effect will be an important first step in bringing that awareness.

Do you agree that more emphasis needs to be placed on girls when considering international development planning? How do we make policy-makers and planners aware of this issue?

Harnessing the power of play

I’ve always been intrigued by innovative ideas that are integral to the development of human capacity and potential, particularly when it comes to healthcare and the alleviation of poverty.

That’s probably why the idea behind PlayPumps International appeals to me.

PlayPumps allow local communities to access clean drinking water without the necessity for intensive labor, electricity, or fuel that usually comes with drilling a water well. Instead, they “harness the power of children playing” in order to pump water to the places that need it most. Watch this video for a quick explanation.

Sure there are several issues — child labor, misuse, advertising, etc. — that come from having such a project, but the fact remains that the installation of these pumps is bringing clean water to communities where this water was otherwise difficult to obtain. The discussion around the ethical and social issues behind this technology is one that needs to happen, but the underlying result of the project is noble.

I’ll make it a point to do some more research on PlayPumps and their model of social entrepreneurship before I decide to make a donation, but I just wanted to share this to show yet another example of how the smallest innovations can help change the world.