We spend a considerable amount of space on our platform talking about why education in important. Every person in the world deserves to have access to education, but there are many barriers stopping a large section of the global population from getting it. In the US, the issue of student loans and college debt has become a major factor in the youth population deciding whether higher education is even worth it in the long run.
In the developing world, gender is often a factor, where boys’ education becomes a priority, and girls are often seen as a burden to poor families. In many of these situations, marrying girls off at an early age is a better alternative, but that leads to the potential of increased violence, maternal mortality and the continued cycle of poverty.
There are some amazing initiatives worldwide raising awareness about the wide-ranging impact of educating a girl. Many studies show that for every additional year of schooling beyond elementary level a girl gets, her potential to earn money increases. Economic studies are now starting to see educated girls who participate in the public sphere as a valuable asset to a country’s GDP.
The path to creating greater empathy, we believe, is by sharing powerful individual stories of women and girls whose lives have been drastically transformed after going to school. Which is why we LOVE Glamour Magazine’s ‘Get Schooled’ online video series promoting the benefits of getting an education.
The series, which is part of the Glamour’s The Girl Project initiative, follows 5 female filmmakers as they interview 5 girls from around the world, sharing with audiences the struggles they have endured and why the ability to go to school has been a lifesaver. The reason for making this video series is very clear, and it is all based on the numbers.
“Right now, 50 million girls around the world between the ages of 12 and 18 aren’t in school. Countless others are on the brink of dropping out, at risk of missing out on the education they deserve. The barriers standing between those girls and an education are as numerous and diverse as the girls are themselves—some can’t afford tuition, others are forced into early marriage, still others are dealing with turbulent home lives and emotional trauma,” said the Glamour statement about the project.
The girls interviewed are part of The Girl Project, which partners with an organization called Communities In Schools to help support girls in need. In one episode, Brooklyn filmmaker Sabaah Folayan tells the story of Kylee, a high school senior from Kansas who has struggled through poverty, bullying, and emotional issues. In her senior year she almost dropped out of school and was involved in a physical altercation, but an intervention by her school counselor helped put her back on track, and today she has a job and is set to graduate in spring.
Director Elizabeth Lo traveled to India to meet Keerthi, who is attending a boarding school which helps poor children, despite the circumstances she comes from. Her mother is a single parent after her dad died when she was young, forcing Keerthi’s mom to work in a nearby quarry just to earn money. She has 3 older brothers, 2 of whom also work in the quarry to make ends meet.
Keerthi and her family live in a small town north of Bangalore where many people are forced to work in the quarry to afford the basics like food and clothing. But with the opportunity to get an education, Keerthi is able to break the cycle of poverty in her family and aspire to work in a field of her choosing.
“I want to be a software engineer. We have a subject called computers and we do Java programming and Scratch projects and it’s really fun and interesting,” she told Elizabeth.
The third video which has been released follows filmmaker Idil Ibrahim to Malawi where she interviews Jenifer. As one of the only young girls in her family going to school, Jenifer is an anomaly, but she has also experienced some hardships in life. Both of her parents died when she was young, and social traditions do not always make way for girls to go to school and earn their own living.
“Most girls are seen as inferior over men. Men are given a lot of opportunity to go to school and study, whereas some of the girls, we are just being left at home. Most of the girls who got married, they didn’t have a happy life. Most of them were beaten by their husband and they couldn’t even find food to feed themselves and their kids,” she said.
The videos are short, but give a great overview of the problem facing many girls around the world, including right here in the US. We love that Glamour magazine, being a super popular platform for young women, is raising awareness about this issue and instilling a sense of advocacy and activism in their generation of readers. It’s something we also are passionate about which is why it is important for us to share projects like this.
Keep up to date with The Girl Project and visit Glamour for more episodes of Get Schooled.
