This is a must watch:

Check out more info on Oprah’s website.

There are over 600 million girls in the developing world.

What if you can help start CHANGE with just

ONE GIRL?

This girl hopes you can help other girls out there.

Visit www.girleffect.org.

see more information… Girl.org

done

Sunday was National Women’s Day in South Africa and the country has a public holiday to celebrate it. It therefore feels appropriate for me to reflect on the young women that I have met here.  

There are three women in particular who have impacted my heart while I have been here. Three young women who have shared their story with me: one shared her fear of losing her ill mother, another, her fear of not reaching her dreams, and the third a young victim of sexual abuse. The stories of these three young women of South Africa are evidence to the plight of young women living with the effects of poverty, for they are only three women and their circumstances are not unique.  

What is brilliant however is their strength, intellect, passion, faith and sense of hope for their loved ones, their community and their country. We must all work together to make the world a better place, and women have an essential role to play.  

Check out this interesting organisation, the girl effect: www.girleffect.org and their video www.girleffect.org/video  

By Alison Carlman, KF8, Kenya

Consider yourself warned: this blog talks about maxipads. There. I said it. Now please keep reading.

Perhaps you’ve heard of  the “Girl Effect” campaign.  The “Girl Effect” is a about investing in what Africans call the “girl child” and how that can affect a country’s development.  According to The Girl Effect, an extra year in primary school statistically boosts girls’ future wages by 10% to 20%, and every additional year a girl spends in secondary school lifts her income by 15% to 25%. And you better believe that the size of a country’s economy is, in no small part, determined by the educational attainment and skill sets of its girls. For Kenya alone, if the 1.6 million teenage girls who drop out of school each year instead finished their secondary education, their incremental earning power would lift Kenya’s GDP by $27 billion over their lifetimes.   Not to MENTION the impact it would have on the health and well-being of future families and children of these girls-turned-women.

But it’s not that easy just to “stay in school.” The girls I work with in Kisumu at K-MET’s Safe Space have dropped out of school, many because they became mothers during their teen years.

A Safe Space Member Working to Start a Tailoring Business

I’ve talked a little with these girls, and have learned some other things about why it is so difficult to stay in school.  I learned that something as simple as “sanitary towels” (or maxipads -there, I said it again-) can make the difference whether or not girls miss 4 days of school each month and get hopelessly behind in their studies.  These products are too expensive to purchase every month, and the alternative is to use unsafe materials (like chopped up pieces of mattresses or old newspapers) which cause infections, leading to more absenteeism.

Look – I realize that you didn’t check the Kiva blog to read about sanitary products. But aren’t you at least slightly incensed by the fact that the lack of these simple supplies keep girls and women from attending school, attending public meetings, or even operating their own businesses for 4 days every month?!

There have even been studies done in East Africa that reflect these statistics: a study in Rwanda by Sustainable Health Enterprises in Rwanda showed that even if girls are provided with scholarship money, “ if we don’t make sanitary pads available they will still miss school because they can’t afford to buy them, girls are missing school 4 days a month during their menses just because the pads are too expensive.”

K-MET, the Kiva Partner where I work, is taking on the challenge to find a sustainable solution to the problem.  Let’s face it; the world didn’t stop turning 50 years ago before they invented these expensive products that are harmful to our environment.   The K-MET team is working to “re-invent” (if you will) a sustainable sanitary towel that is environmentally friendly, can be re-used, and costs a fraction of the amount that the disposable ones do.

Susan, the tailoring tutor at Sisterhood for Change, shows samples that the girls have made

It’s a new project under the umbrella of K-MET’s Sisterhood for Change program, and it’s not yet funded by microfinance, but if it is successful, individual girls could be able to start their own businesses selling these products in their community with some help from Kiva lenders like you!

I think that this is the kind of entrepreneurial venture that makes us all excited in microfinance.  For me, I’m passionate about African women coming up with African solutions to African problems.  These women identified a need and came up with a product that is both financially and environmentally sustainable in the developing world.  And perhaps this is one of those areas where we in the developed world can learn from some African ingenuity.

___

Alison Carlman is in her 7th week as a Kiva Fellow in Kisumu, Kenya with K-MET.  She is passionate about women, art, community, and sustainable development, and K-MET is a great host MFI in that regard. Interested in K-MET’s unique approach to microfinance and development? Learn more about K-MET here or join the K-MET lending team here. You can even check for fundraising K-MET loans here.

This month, the library has displayed books that relate to the United Nations Population Fund’s World Population Day’s theme: Fight Poverty, Educate Girls.

World Population Day is celebrated on July 11 and this year’s theme strives to educate the public that the education of girls/women will help eradicate poverty. Here’s a quote from the UNFPA’s website on Population Day:

If you’re interested in this topic, check out this cool public service announcement/flash animation/video that our student assistant, Amanda  Rowley showed us, titled  The Girl Effect.

Three words can change the world . . .

educate a girl

learn to read

education promotes peace

make a difference

Sound too simple? Watch this short video clip, educate yourself, visualize the world becoming a better place. Then share this simple thought with everyone you know.

If you still are not convinced find yourself a copy of ‘Three Cups of Tea’. David Oliver Relin wrote the true story of American Greg Mortenson. Their book, ‘Three Cups of Tea’ begins with mountaineer adventurer Mortenson taking what seems to be a wrong turn onto a path that changes Mortenson’s life forever. Mortenson has tirelessly worked the same premise as  The Girl Effect since getting lost and wandering into a remote village that was not on his map. His life’s mission is to build schools and educate girls, and this act promotes peace and improves village life throughout distraught Pakistan and Afghanistan. These young women are already giving back to their families and villages, despite the Taliban’s grip in this region.

“There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. By giving one of these girls a chance, you start the girl effect. When girls have safe places to meet, education, legal protection, health care, and access to training and job skills, they can thrive. ” girleffect.org

And if they thrive, everyone around them thrives, meaning their entire village does too. That makes the world a better place.

Educate a girl.

girleffect.org

Two new ads are up from the incumbent governor most likely to lose this fall (are there actually any others?), “Stand,” and the one I chose to review, “Congratulations.” Both ads have some interesting stylistic features; maybe I’ll review “Stand” later this week, if I get a some time.

I chose “Congratulations” because it offers a chance to talk about something I wrote about in an old failed blog — kinetic typography. What’s that? Well, here’s the best example of kinetic typography I’ve seen. Seriously, take two minutes and watch it, it’s totally worth it.

Back? Good, now take another look at this ad.

Form (on a scale A-F): B/B-

All right, let’s get down to it.  If I’m a big fan of kinetic typography, why doesn’t this spot grade out higher? Because I think it uses the kinetic type mostly as a show piece. Is the moving text really conveying any new information, or just a snazzy transition between one CG card and the next?

So sure, this is kinetic typography, but a pretty basic and pretty uninteresting example of it. Now, this type of ad is very hard to produce, every word and movement has to be planned out in advance, it’s time consuming, and it’s the type of ad that you need to give yourself a little extra time to create.  So there’s a reason to keep it simple when you’re cranking out campaign ads. But this isn’t the middle of a campaign, it’s first ad salvo; they should be able to give you more than just spinning letters.

Here, take a look at an ad we did from last year called, “Silent Bob.” (Yes, for all you Kevin Smith fans, the name was a joke that only I got.) Look, our ad is no “Girl Effect,” but the movement of the text was designed to accentuate Schaffer’s statement, make it all the more absurd, and drive the point home that’s he’s not on the side of Colorado. I point this out not to extol my work, but rather to say, you can do kinetic type on the cheap and still serve a message.

What is the text movement here doing? What is its function? I’m not sure; frankly, it feels lazy and derivative (and derivative can be good if you add you own twist).

What saves it from being a C+ form grade is the word cloud forming Christie’s image at the end; while I would quibble that the words should be easier to read (not sure if that possible), it was neat and innovative and does serve a message function. It’s not perfect, but I appreciate the effort there, and frankly, I’m going to steal it someday for an ad (unless everyone else is using it, in which case never mind).

Function (on a scale A-F): B-

It’s June, you’re an incumbent up for re-election, and you’re way down in the polls. It’s New Jersey. What do you do? Re-position your opponent, or in common parlance, go negative (the idea of negative ads is something I’ll take on another day). Opening with a negative is always a risky proposition, but less so in this case. Corzine is already unpopular, Jersey is used to slash and burn campaigns, and the only way to get his numbers up is to remind people that Corzine may be unpopular, but at least he’s on the right side of issues. Basically, he has to steal his vote from Democrats & Independents who are now siding with Christie.

Now, quick, name two things the ad mentions that Christie is against. Kinda hard, right? The point isn’t any one issue, but the idea that Christie is on the wrong side of ALL the issues, he’s not on your side.

They don’t overplay the negative with horrible music or an over-the-top voice over, which helps make the ad more believable.

The real risk now is that it’s June, will these or any Corzine attacks be as strong in October? The more you attack an opponent, the more the public starts to take everything you say with a grain of salt.

Final Grade (on a scale A-F): B-

It’s a solid ad, not too negative and fairly slick. It serves a purpose to get people to reconsider their support for Christie, hold their nose and vote for Corzine as the lesser of two evils.

The form isn’t helping it to deliver its message; it’s just slick and lazy until the end — which is interesting and effective, bordering on really good.

My main beef is that it’s mimicking a style with no understanding of what that style should be accomplishing. It’s like speaking a language without knowing the vocabulary; the words are familiar, but the meaning is gibberish.

Still, the effect doesn’t take from the message, it’s just a missed opportunity. To quote Shakespeare, it is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I Dare You is a powerful video created by The Gift Effect that challenges people rethink what being a girl means in developing countries. The video shows that all girls desire the opportunity to have a future, and for most girls that begins with giving them access to education. If the western world was to put more pressure on and channel more funds to girls education, Africa would be a very different place.

I ran across this on Twitter and had to spread the word. Please check out this video and share it with people in your sphere of influence. This is a great way to spread gender equality on a global level.

The “girl effect” (slogan coming to you courtesy of Wieden & Kennedy) got some significant airtime at World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009:

The take-home:
“Investing in women is smart economics. Investing in girls – catching them upstream – is even smarter economics,” is a development insight that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank, Washington DC would like to see established as conventional wisdom. Helene Gayle, President and Chief Executive Officer of CARE agreed, and added “educating girls yields some of the highest returns of all development investments.” An educated girl will use 90% of her future income for her family, while boys invest only 35% is just one example of the “girl effect” on development.”

Read the whole darn thing, why dontcha? And then join 5 for Fairness.

I am primarily motivated to work on creating a social movement to redress the gender imbalances in the world by the the bald unfairness of the way girls are treated. That said, there are plenty of other reasons to join this movement, and many of them are outlined in this excellent article by Alyson Warhurst in Business Week.

Take-home:
“Girls and young women could be an important centerpiece of sustainable economic recovery—one that is worthy of innovative policy making on the part of business and governments alike. There are 600 million girls out there, after all. They just need to be seen, understood, and given a chance.”

Amen.

Some of my most meaningful work has been with Reach India, an organization that works with poor women and adolescent girls in rural India, helping them develop the life skills to change their own lives and create their own future. I visited the program last year, and it was an inspiring experience that will always stay with me.

Reach India is supported by Nike Foundation, and they have a true understanding of the power and potential of girls. This video, done by Wieden + Kennedy has been around, but it’s so important to my work, that I want to share it here.

As a communications piece, the video is simple, clear, powerful and inspiring.

For more information, check out girleffect.org.

Hi, would you like a little world-changing idea this morning?

How about a little idea with your coffee today?

Hi there, would you like to change the world?

These are the phrases that GlobalGiving is using to sell itself to passer-bys on the street walking to work in the morning.

http://www.globalgiving.com/

GlobalGiving is an online marketplace that hosts pre-screened charitable causes who are in need of some funding and need a way to connect with donors that won’t add to their operating costs. GlobalGiving categorizes the projects by region and by topic – e.g. women, environment, health, human rights, etc. to allow you to find a cause you believe in more quickly. Even a quick browse through the site will have you emptying your online pockets of spare change (metaphorically speaking) because each cause just seems so worthwhile and they ask for donations ranging from the tens of thousands to mere pennies. So if you feel like you’ve got a few spare pennies, and even if you want to just check it out… watch this promotional video explaining how GlobalGiving works:

- Sarah Topps

There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. By giving one of these girls a chance, you start the girl effect. When girls have safe places to meet, education, legal protection, health care, and access to training and job skills, they can thrive. And if they thrive, everyone around them thrives, too. Read why you should invest in girls. The Girl Effect is a movement – be part of it.