Educating and Empowering Girls Increases our National Wealth

When a girl is compelled to drop out of school to get married, it isn’t just her who loses out on a future of upward mobility and better life conditions. The nation as a whole suffers. The education and empowerment of girls is a collective responsibility in a country like ours.

En-Light a Girl Child is helping more girls in India finish school and avoid early marriage through awareness and empowerment programs geared towards creating positive discrimination for girl students. Take a look at our Rajasthan Project Report Album to see just how:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1480918488804316.1073741833.1381856832043816&type=3

YOU can also help girls acquire the education they need to achieve their dreams through small interventions and acts of everyday heroism by changing the attitude of your community toward girls’ education, marriage and childbearing. Share your ideas with us using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild ! We are curating tweets, Facebook and Tumblr posts, Instagram images, and more!

Support En-Light a Girl Child by spreading the word. Visit us athttp://www.enlightagirlchild.com/

Visit our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to learn more about our hashtag campaign!

Malavath Poorna, Youngest Girl to Scale the Everest Knows the Value of Girls' Education, Do YOU?

A month shy of her 14th birthday, Malavath Poorna became the world’s youngest woman to conquer the Everest after a 52 day climb this month. Poorna hails from the Nizamabad district of Andhra Pradesh, India, where her parents are farm labourers. She is a class IX student studying in a government run social welfare hostel. Even though she comes from a modest background, Poorna told NDTV in an interview last November: “I will climb Mount Everest and after I am back, I am going to be an IPS officer.” And now that she has accomplished one goal, she is clear about her plans for the future. When asked by HuffPost about what is next for her, she said, “I am going back to school. I can’t neglect my education, without education we are nothing – most of our community people are living in miserable conditions due to lack of education. These are life lessons from my parents.”

Girls like Poorna are ambitious despite their modest backgrounds and know the value of education. Support girls like Poorna so that they can make us all proud with their extraordinary achievements! Help girls acquire the education they need to achieve their dreams! Share your ideas with us using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild ! We are curating tweets, Facebook and Tumblr posts, Instagram images, and more!

Visit our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to learn more about our hashtag campaign!

10 Hard Facts about Girls' Education

An educated girl can empower herself, lift her family, help her community, change her country.1 - There are 32 million fewer girls than boys in primary school.Education First: An Initiative of the United Nations Secretary General, 2012.
A girl with an extra year of education can earn 20% more as an adult.The World Bank, 2011.
2 - 65 million girls are out of school globally. EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.
An educated mother is more than twice as likely to send her children to school.UNICEF, 2010.
3 –  There are still 31 million girls of primary school age out of school. EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.
10% fewer girls under the age of 17 would become pregnant in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia if they had a primary education.EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.
4 –  There are 34 million female adolescents out of school globally. EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.
If India enrolled 1% more girls in secondary school, its GDP would rise by $5.5 billion.CIA World Factbook,Global Campaign for Education, and RESULTS Education Fund.
5 –  14 million girls under 18 will be married this year. That’s 38 thousand today – or 13 girls in the last 30 seconds. UNFPA, 2012
Girls with secondary education are 6 times less likely to be married as children.International Center for Research on Women, 2006.
If all girls had a secondary education, there would be two-thirds fewer child marriages.EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.
6 –  In a single year, an estimated 150 million girls were victims of sexual violence. UNIFEM, 2011.
7 –  And 50 % of sexual assaults in the world victimize girls under the age of 15. UNFPA, 2005.
Education empowers women to overcome discrimination. Girls and young women who are educated have greater awareness of their rights, and greater confidence and freedom to make decisions that affect their lives, improve their health, and boost their work prospects.Education First: An Initiative of the United Nations Secretary General, 2012.
8 –  In developing countries, the #1 cause of death for girls 15-19 is childbirth. World Health Organization, 2012
Child deaths would be cut in half if all women had a secondary education, saving 3 million lives. And all maternal deaths would be reduced by two-thirds if each mother completed primary education.EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.
9 –  Two-thirds of the 792 million illiterate adults in the world are female. EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012
A literate mother has a 50% higher chance that her child will survive past the age of 5.UNESCO, 2011.
10 –  There are 9.9 million girls out of school in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Ethiopia. World Bank Education Statistics, 2012.
By attaining a secondary education, a Pakistani woman can earn 70 percent what men earn, as opposed to only 51 percent with a primary education.EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2012.

--Via OSU

When a girl is  drops out of school, it isn’t just her who loses out on a future of upward mobility and better life conditions. The nation as a whole suffers. The education and empowerment of girls is a collective responsibility in a country like ours.

En-Light a Girl Child is helping more girls finish school and avoid early marriage and childbearing through awareness and empowerment programs geared towards creating positive discrimination for girl students in India. Take a look at our Rajasthan Project Report Album on our Facebook page to see just how:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1480918488804316.1073741833.1381856832043816&type=3

YOU can also help girls acquire the education they need to achieve their dreams through small interventions and acts of everyday heroism by changing the attitude of your community toward girls’ education, marriage and childbearing. Share your ideas with us using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild ! We are curating tweets, Facebook and Tumblr posts, Instagram images, and more!

Support En-Light a Girl Child by spreading the word. Visit us at http://www.enlightagirlchild.com/

Visit our Facebook Page at  https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to learn more about our hashtag campaign!

Small Gains in Girls' Education, BIG leaps in National Development: Encouraging News from CBSE

There has been a heartening increase in the number of girls appearing in the all important Indian Central Board of Secondary Education’s school leaving Class XII examinations from last year. We need more of our girl-students to finish secondary school and go on to college.

Do YOU have any ideas on how to accomplish this? Tell us using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Tumblr!

Visit our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild for more information and details about our hashtag campaign!

Our Lost Girls: Human Trafficking in India and What We Can Do to Help

Over the past nine years, 300,000 Indian women and 64,000 girls have been abducted – and that’s the cases that have been reported. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, from 2005 to 2012, the number of women being abducted increased by 11.73% every year, while the number of girl child kidnappings soared 23.2% each year. Minor girls account for almost 85% of all kidnappings in the country, says the crime bureau. (In the official records, children are “kidnapped”, while adults are “abducted.”

(—Scroll.in)

 There are approximately 2 million child commercial sex workers between the age of 5 and 15 years and about 3.3 million between 15 and 18 years; forming 40% of the total population of commercial sex workers in India; 71% of them are illiterate; 500,000 children are forced into this trade every year.

En-Light a Girl Child Initiative helps STOP human trafficking and underage marriage by keeping girls enrolled in school instead. We accomplish this by engaging communities in extending support to girls and inculcating respect for their bodily integrity through our sensitisation and awareness program.

Visit us at http://enlightagirlchild.com/ to learn more about our outreach programs in Bihar and Rajasthan.

Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to keep up with our initiatives and share your ideas about the ways in which we can make India a better place for girls. 

Use the hashtag #enlightagirlchild so we can find your contributions in this dialogue on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram!

How will YOU help change these dismal statistics about India?

India ranks among the worst countries for women within the G20 nations. Help us change this state of affairs by making sure our girls stay enrolled in school and aren’t pressured to drop out to marry or take up menial jobs to supplement the household income. The education of girls is the collective responsibility of communities. Support the education of girl-children in India for a better future for all of us!

Help girls acquire the education they need to achieve their dreams! Share your ideas with us using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild ! We are curating tweets, Facebook and Tumblr posts, Instagram images, and more!

Support En-Light a Girl Child by spreading the word. Visit us at http://www.enlightagirlchild.com/

Visit our Facebook Page at  https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to learn more about our hashtag campaign!

Women in the Lok Sabha: Highest Ever but still Behind Global Average of Women's Parliamentary Representation

While the 16th Lok Sabha will have the largest representation of women MPs in Indian history, this is still only 11%, much less than the global average of nearly 22% of women in parliament.

Women form as much as 49% of the electoral base, yet get only 11% representation in the Lok Sabha. Is this fair?

Today’s girl students will be tomorrow’s electoral base. How do YOU think we can help build an empowered and informed electorate with better gender representation?

Share your ideas using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Tumblr!

Use the hashtag #enlightagirlchild on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook to tell us how you can make small interventions that yield big changes!

Visit our Facebook Page at  https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to learn more about our hashtag campaign!

The Story of Tabassum Parveen

This is Tabassum Parveen, from the Sahebpur Kamal village in the Begusarai district of Bihar, India. Tabassum studies in the 9th grade. Her father is a rickshaw puller. Tabassum lives with her parents, grandparents, six sisters and five brothers. They have one kerosene lamp and 2 kerosene lit candles in their house to provide illumination for all the members of the household.

Tabassum was one of the 3003 girls who received LED lamps through the En-Light a Girl Child initiative which aims to give girls the flexibility to study in their free time after sundown with greater regularity and boost their morale and achievement motivation through a personal asset they can control the use of. . 

During a visit to her residence in the evening, our follow-up team found that Tabassum along with majority of her school going siblings were studying using the LED light. Her father said that he is not educated; they are very poor and wishes that his children study and live a better life. Her mother said that the government provides support to the students in terms of books, dress, cycle, grants etc. but availability of electricity is a major problem.

Now, with the provision of LED light, the children study together in the evening hours. Tabassum said that the LED light provides far bright light than kerosene lamps and that all the siblings now sit together and study. The encouragement and motivation to study has increased with the availability of LED light.

How can YOU help girls like Tabassum? Write in using the hashtag #enlightagirlchild on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr!

Visit our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild for more information and details about our hashtag campaign!

Support En-Light a Girl Child by spreading the word. Visit us at http://www.enlightagirlchild.com/

How will YOU #Enlightagirlchild ?

Have you ever given any thought to perhaps helping underprivileged children in your neighbourhood by providing them with crayons or art material? Have you helped girl students stay enrolled in school by supporting them with school supplies? Did you talk your domestic help from pulling their girls out of school to put them to work by partially financing their studies?

If so, we’re looking to feature YOUR story, because we think small actions like these make everyday heroes and show others the way to make a difference. Use the hashtag #enlightagirlchild so we can find your story.

Help us educate, empower and En-light our girls for a better future for us all.

Share this poster on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook with the hashtag #enlightagirlchild to spread the message.

Visit our Facebook Page at  https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to learn more about our hashtag campaign!

Awareness and Positive Discrimination for Girls' Education

Our outreach and empowerment initiatives aren't only limited to the distribution of LED lamps to girl-students in economically disadvantaged regions with little to no electricity, we also run sensitizing programs to equip girls with the knowledge of various governmental schemes available for them to use to empower themselves. In Rajasthan, for example, we ran 52 En-Light a Girl Child events including puppet shows and pledge ceremonies, involving the participation of school-going girls from more than 250 villages. We include this Booklet on Girl Child Rights with each of our lamps too in order to reinforce the protections and schemes available to girl children through the state.

Like En-Light a Girl Child on Facebook to learn more about our outreach programs!

Our Project Outcomes focus on Safety of Girl Students as well as Increase in Household Savings

Our project in Rajasthan covers 75 rural government schools and benefits almost 5000 girl students in the districts of Udaipur and Barmer. We ran awareness and sensitisation workshops with teachers and students emphasising child rights and the need for girls' education. Given that Rajasthan is notorious for discrimination against women and girls, what with high rates of female foeticide, child-marriage, high drop-out rates, low immunisation rates among girl children and even nutritional discrimination when it comes to girl children, our focus was on an inclusive approach that would increase the safety of girls as well as decrease household expenditure. By provisioning girl students with inexpensive battery operated LED lights, we empowered them not only to study under bright illumination, rather than dim kerosene lamps, in their own time in the evenings after they had completed their chores, we were also providing them with a personal asset that they could use to keep themselves safe.

Support us by spreading the word and En-Light a Girl Child!

Like our Facebook Page to share YOUR ideas about En-Lighting a Girl Child!

How our Rajasthan Project makes life just a Little Bit Easier for Girl Students

In Rajasthan, we focused on the districts of Udaipur and Barmer and distributed LED lights to 4,988 girl students from 75 rural government schools. We focused on the sensitization of children, school staff and communities on Child Rights, Constitutional Acts & Government schemes in addition to the provisioning of girl students with high-illumination battery operated LED lamps. The provision of LED lights has sent out a strong message to the rural families, schools and communities, establishing the importance of girl child education. It is a small and inexpensive addition to a girl student's life, but our project outcome proves that something as simple as not having to rely on intermittent and unreliable electricity or noxious and dim illumination provided by kerosene lamps, really makes a great difference in keeping girls motivated to attend school, and communities reminded of the value of their girls.

Visit us at http://enlightagirlchild.com/ to learn more about our outreach programs in Bihar and Rajasthan.

Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/enlightgirlchild to keep up with our initiatives and share your ideas about the ways in which we can make India a better place for girls.

Literate mothers, literate children

Literate mothers make for the strongest advocates for literate daughters. We help Indian girls stay in school by making sure they have an alternate source of light when the sun sets on the day’s chores, and they have a moment to themselves to finish their homework. With little to no power-supply in large swathes of rural and semi-rural regions in India, girl children suffer from the dim illumination of kerosene lamps—just another problem among many that have stacked the odds against them. We help them surmount some of these odds with the help of cost-effective battery-operated LED lamps to study with at night.

Support us by spreading the word and En-Light a Girl Child!

Like our Facebook Page to share YOUR ideas about En-Lighting a Girl Child!

Our pledge to protect the rights of the Girl Child

One of the ways we ensure that communities realize the need for working together to ensure that girl children complete their schooling is through sensitisation and awareness campaigns about Child Rights. A component of this multi-pronged approach to help girl children stay in school is the Pedge Ceremony. Through this public event, we reach out to schoolchildren to make them understand the need to help their peers, and for teachers and school officials to create a positive environment for girl children.

We pledge that:

1. We will protect the rights of children
2. We will not take or give dowry
3. We will stop female foeticide
4. We will raise our voices against engagement of child labour
5. We will not marry before reaching the legal age & will raise our voices against child marriage
6. We will not exploit children and protest any exploitation being done to us

Support us by spreading the word and En-Light a Girl Child!

Like our Facebook Page to share YOUR ideas about En-Lighting a Girl Child!

En-Lighting Bihar and Rajasthan

Thus far, we have implemented our initiative in Bihar and Rajasthan. In Bihar, we chose to focus on the two districts of Begusarai and Saharsa, which are among one of the worst faring in terms of availability of a safe and clean source of lighting. Out of the 488062 rural households in Begusarai, 86.5 percent use kerosene as a lighting source. This accounts for about 4.2 lakh rural households facing such a crisis.

The situation in Saharsa is even more desolate. Around 92 percent of rural households rely almost entirely on kerosene for lighting. Girl children who are responsible for managing the daily housework from cleaning to cooking find it extremely challenging to cope with their studies as they move in to higher grades. The only time that they find to study is after sun set and kerosene lamps being expensive are used sparingly. With the prevalent indifference towards the girl children in general and their education in particular any effort to make a kerosene lamp available for studying in their free time, takes a backseat.

This is where we intervened with the distribution of 3003 battery operated LED lamps to girl students enrolled in 13 schools and studying in grades 6-12.

Similarly in Rajasthan, we focused on the districts of Udaipur and Barmer and distributed LED lights to 4,988 girl students from 75 rural government schools.

Spread the word and bring light into the lives of the girl children of India.

Visit En-Light a Girl Child to learn how you can help.

Like us on Facebook to share your ideas about empowering the girls of India!

Banish the Darkness, En-Light a Girl Child

Apart from the fact that India is one of the deadliest places in the world to be a girl child, what with high levels of infant mortality, foeticide, child marriage, domestic servitude, gendered violence and trafficking, those girls who are enrolled in schools in right now across the country often find it difficult to keep up with school-work even with government-aid helping them cover textbooks and school-supplies, because of the lack of electricity in their homes, which forces them to rely on improperly illuminating kerosene lamps after sundown.En-Light a Girl Child helps such students remain in school and keep up with their work by providing them with battery and solar rechargeable LED lights to study by in the evening. For at little as Rs. 400, corporate entities, non-profits, trusts and foundations can help to banish some of the darkness from a girl-child’s life by enabling her access not only to clean, safe, reliable and portable light, but also to our sensitising programs focused on creating awareness about internationally recognised rights extended to all children, as well as constitutional acts and government schemes intended to promote the empowerment of girl children.

Support us by spreading the word far and wide!

 Like En-Light a Girl Child on Facebook to learn more about our initiatives!