It is a cold day, October 10th, 2014, a typical Friday afternoon, as students wander back from their class or head to lunch. In the West Village Quad, there is slightly more movement than usual. One-by-one, a number of black cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes are stacked on a table in the middle of the quad. Each box features bright pink letters, spelling out a word or phrase.
Health. Marriage. Child care. Housework. Gender roles.
Bystanders pause to look, and the students standing behind the table offer a sign that reads, “Education for girls matters because…” Their eyes fixed on the heading, people are lost in thought, and some choose to write their own ending to the sentence, their own answer to a question that has been posed over and over again.
Two years ago, the United Nations declared October 11th the International Day of the Girl Child. For decades, the UN, along with a number of other organizations, have sought to close the gap between the opportunities given to young boys and those given to young girls. This immense disparity exists both domestically and globally, exemplified by wage gaps, domestic violence rates, and a number of other factors. Female empowerment is a topic on many agendas, but the problem is a complex one to tackle. Girls face a multitude of unique interrelated problems in their everyday lives. It is impossible to attempt to solve one without taking into consideration at least some of the others.
For example, a girl seeking a primary-school education in the developing world faces a number of additional obstacles. Her parents may not see the need for her to be educated. She may be engaged to be married, and her future in-laws may frown upon her continuing school. She may be required to cook meals or, to clean the house. Her siblings or elderly relatives might require round-the-clock care. Women carry the weight of the household on their shoulders – even in the most supportive of circumstances, their sphere of responsibility is seen to be different. Lack of access to education is a problem, but it is also a symptom. It is a symptom of perception of women as the weaker gender; it is a symptom of lack of access to economic empowerment; it is a symptom of the endless self-fulfilling cycle of poverty that cripples family after family. Educating girls is integral to global development not only because it educates half of the next generation – it is also important because it equips these girls and their future families with the opportunity to better their circumstances. It is a chance for these girls to take charge of their own minds, their health, their bodies, their jobs, and their aspirations.
Room to Read is an organization started by ex-Microsoft employee John Wood in 2000, which works towards universal childhood literacy and gender inequality in education. It is one of the most successful nonprofits in the space of education, having constructed almost 2,000 schools and more than 16,000 libraries. Room to Read’s unique collaborative model encourages communities to invest the resources they have in the projects that will benefit them. Room to Read will cover much of the monetary funding, but the actual design, construction, and resource allocation is handled largely by the real customers – the parents of the future students. Room to Read has distributed millions of books, and has published more than 1,000 of its own in over one hundred languages, so that children can read stories in their local dialects.
Room to Read places emphasis on creating opportunity for girls; almost 30,000 girls participate in its special girls’ education program. It employs a holistic model to address not only access to textbooks or teachers, but the other factors in girls’ lives that impede their success. The Girls’ Education program at Room to Read involves community engagement, mentorship and life skills training, and family-based workshops and meetings. The organization firmly believes that “educating girls is the most powerful and effective way to address global poverty.” Their work has been cited as exemplary by many, and they have received awards from Charity Navigator and Reader’s Digest. Founder John Wood is in great demand as a speaker in universities and at events all over the world. Last year, Northeastern was lucky enough to host him twice, once in the fall and once in the spring. Inspired by his work, a team of Northeastern students formed a university chapter under the guidance of Professor Dennis Shaughnessy of the Social Enterprise Institute.
Room to Read’s Northeastern Chapter, in conjunction with the Global Campaign for Education and the Northeastern UNICEF Club, held an event called “Box Out the Barriers,” which was the aforementioned exhibit in the West Village Quad on Northeastern University’s campus. It drew attention to how the problems in girls’ lives are often interrelated, and that girls’ education is far from being a simple cause. These problems pile up, much like the boxes, making lifting oneself out of the cycle of illiteracy or poverty immensely difficult. Anyone passing by could write in their own reason for why girls’ education was particularly important to them, and take a picture with it in front of the exhibit. Organizations like UNICEF and Room to Read have their own ways of dealing with the issue, but it is a space that needs more discussion, more effort, more attempts at impact. Female disempowerment is not just a domestic problem or a developing country problem. It is a global necessity that girls get access to opportunity, that they have the chance to educate themselves and their families. Educating girls is a social, political, and economic need for our society.
