Gaining Inspiration from #Malala

Today, I'm honored to post the writing of a guest blogger, Shruti, a good friend of my daughter. She wrote the following piece about Malala Yousafzai for her 7th grade class. I was moved by her last paragraph about how she has been inspired by Malala to help girls around the world to access education. She told me about her family trip to India, where she got to visit a school for girls who had previously been denied education by their families. Even though their families did not put value on education for girls, their community came together to create the school and put pressure on the their parents to let them come.

Shruti and the members of RESULTS St Louis visiting
the aide of U.S. Representative Ann Wagner

Shruti got a chance hear firsthand about how the students felt about their new opportunities. One student still cries every morning when she arrives because she is so grateful to be getting the education she thought was out of her reach. Another girl used to actually dream at night about how it would feel to hold a pencil in her hand...she never thought she would have that chance in real life! I was so moved by these stories that I asked her to tell these stories to an aide in the office of our U.S. representative. I'm so happy she came with our RESULTS group to speak out. She bravely told her story with sincerity and passion, helping us make the case for why we want our U.S. representative to fund the Global Partnership for Education at a level of $125 Million for fiscal year 2018.

To learn more about the value of educating girls and the life of Malala, please enjoy Shruti's essay...

A Girl With Knowledge : A Girl with Power

by Shruti, 7th grade

With every extra year of quality education, a girl earns 20% more as an adult. There are millions of girls around the world who don’t get to learn to read or write because they are forced to work around the house and get married early. Many others simply can’t afford school because of war or poverty in their countries. A few years ago, a young girl named Malala Yousafzai began working towards providing girls around the world with quality education..

Speaking Out

In 2009, Malala had started writing a blog for the BBC Urdu service under a pseudonym. Most of her blog posts were about Malala’s opinion of the Taliban banning girls from going to school and destroying school buildings. A few months afterwards, she was featured in a New York Times documentary, and was revealed as the author of the BBC blog.

Threatened

Malala, and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, began receiving death threats from the Taliban. Two years later, in 2011, Malala received Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize. Seeing her progress and recognizing the fact that Malala was gaining popularity, the Taliban  leaders  decided  to  kill her.  

Attacked

On October 9, 2012, young education activist Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban for speaking out about girls’ right to education, while she rode her bus back home from school.

When Malala was shot, people all around the world rose to her defense, and began rallying for girls’ education with more enthusiasm than had ever been witnessed for this cause.

Sticking With Her Dream

Flash forward to early 2013 — Malala gave her first speech after recovery at the UN. Even after being shot, and going through a long recovery, Malala said that “Education is the only solution. Education First.”  Recently, on her eighteenth birthday, Malala opened a school in Lebanon for Syrian refugee girls.

How Many Girls Don’t Receive The Education They Need?

As stated on the Malala Fund website, 32 million girls eligible for elementary through middle school are still out of school around the world. School enrollment rates for girls have improved over the past ten years, yet more than 30 million girls between ages 9 and 15 are still out of school today. Most of them will never enter a classroom.

Another 98 million girls are missing out on secondary education. Millions more are missing out on the final years of secondary schooling but are not being counted. Girls are often under pressure to drop out of school, even if they have completed basic education.

The Benefits of A Quality Education

According to “Girls' education: A lifeline to development” found on UNICEF’s website, studies from a number of countries suggest that an additional year of schooling would increase a woman's future salary by about 15 %, compared with 11 % for a man.

Educated girls are more likely to avoid getting married as a child, and usually have fewer children than girls who don’t have access to education.

How Many Have We Actually Helped?

According to Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta, former president of the International Centre for Research on Women, the education target has made an important difference in the lives of girls and women.
“Action and investments of dollars into women’s constraints and needs has increased. And that has resulted in some progress.” said Dr. Rao Gupta.

“The girls who are left behind are the ones who are most in need – and these are poor girls, those who belong to minority populations within their countries and those who live in rural areas,” Dr. Rao Gupta added. “Unfortunately, they are the ones who still have not received the benefits of the various investments made in most countries around the world.”

What Can We Do To Help?

Even a small contribution would help us reach the point where every girl has access to good education. Hosting small fundraisers, donating towards the cause, or even rallying for it are ways that would be beneficial. Many non-profit organizations write letters to the governments of multiple developed countries, asking them to step in and try to improve the accessibility to education for girls around the world. Together, we can achieve our goal of providing every girl with a quality education.

                 We are so fortunate to receive education and get a chance to make our own future. Many children around the world never get that chance. I think about all those times I have complained about homework assignments. I think of all those times I have whined about studying for a test. And I realize what an important opportunity I have — I can work towards going to my dream college and I have a job I have always thought about having. After writing this article and reading about girls all around the world who dream of holding a pencil and a notebook, I know for sure that I will never forget to appreciate my education and will try my best to contribute towards girls’ education.

Rainbow Parfaits for #Global Goals

It's true that sometimes I am overly ambitious. I know this. I claim that my life is too short to do one thing at a time, so I multitask to a ridiculous extent and manage to work in a poverty-fighting action or lesson into almost everything I do. Sometimes to great success. Other times...well, let me tell you the story of the End of the Rainbow Parfaits.

I was browsing through Pinterest one day with my eye out for a fun dessert I might make with my daughter and her friends for an upcoming slumber party. They'd been in a baking phase and I wanted to indulge them a bit. This is when I stumbled upon the End of the Rainbow Parfaits.

Photo from Tablespoon.com

Now, I know most moms wouldn't look at these delicious treats and say "Hey, that looks like a good lesson about the Global Goals!!!" But I'm weird and that's exactly what I thought. See, when I saw that picture, my mind when straight to this infographic...

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development, which I previously wrote about here, are 17 goals for the world that will help us do three things in the next 15 years: end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change. It's up to us as global citizens to choose which ones we personally want to work on to get there. Each goal has a color in the graphic, so I thought that it would be neat to make these parfaits and allow kids to choose the color representing the issue they felt most strongly about. Only want to help "Life Below Water?" Cool. Yours can be all blue. I can never choose just one and like to work on global health (green), life under water (blue), clean water (light blue), education (dark red), and poverty in general (bright red).

I wanted to make these with my daughter's friends and give them the message that THEY get to choose in life what THEY want to work on. Too often, we just spoonfeed kid the idea that they have to do something and give them a something that we personally want to do. In real life, we have a choice.

In the middle of the prep, I got a call from my good friend Jennifer Burden, founder of World Moms Network. I told her I was getting kind of aggravated while I was getting ready for a slumber party and putting together the ingredients for this pretty ambitious dessert/craft. She said something like, "Do you ever just do anything just for fun?" I laughed and (joking-not-joking)said something like, "I don't think so. Please help me. It's a problem!" And it was! I was stressing out about the party anyway. I had no business trying to add a poverty lesson into the mix!!! Why was I pushing myself into an "Advocate to Aggravate" campaign?

Sigh. Well, Jen talked me into a better mood and we proceeded with the craft. Let's see how it went shall we?

STEP 1: Mix up refrigerated sugar cookie dough with eggs, vanilla, and food coloring. For simplicity, I did not make 17 different colors.

STEP 2: Spoon the colored batter into cupcake cups.

STEP 4: Bake 'em up! Use this baking time to explain the Global Goals to your helpers and tell them to think about what colors and goals they would like to work on.

STEP 5: Remove from oven and admire how well you are doing so far.

STEP 6: Crumble up the colored cupcakes into separate bowls.

STEP 7: Spoon in a chosen color, cover with whip cream, repeat until satisfied. And VOILA!

U

hmmm...okay, so they didn't EXACTLY turn out the way they looked on Pinterest, but on the whole I think we...

NAILED IT!

So, yeah. It turned out to be a laughable mess. We won't be doing this for any bar mitzvahs or anything, but the girls had fun and they got some global learnin' along the way. I was not sorry we tried!! If you try it, tell me how it goes!

Advocacy Made Easy: The Call-In Action

Tongue-tied with pounding heart. Approaching my phone like it was some sort of uber-important Bat-phone under glass...

That's was me the first time I called my member of Congress. I think I was afraid that someone on the other end was going to challenge or berate me for speaking up. But guess what? That never happened. Calling Congress is funny because it is is actually No Big Deal in the actual doing of it, but it can have profound effects on public policy. Read on and I will spare you from the stress I once felt! Let's demystify the "call-in" action and make it more fun by looking at five things I've learned from years of calling in...

1. It's SUPER easy
Even though I was a tad freaked out the first time I did it, these days I usually call Congress while I'm Mommy Multitasking...doing laundry, making lunch, whatever. To show how easy it really is, I made a video in 2011 when there was a call-in day about an issue that seemed very complicated. I wanted to show that the heart of the issue was simple and it was easy to call in about it. Here are my slightly-staged scenarios with my daughter years ago with very real phone calls.

Click here to see how I called in to fight poverty while making a birthday cake with my 4 year old.

Then, click here to see how we called Congress while playing Candyland! Whee!

2. You won't be talking to a member of Congress
Relax! The person picking up the phone is likely a staffer who doesn't know very much about your issue. The job of that person is to politely take your message, write it down, and get your name (maybe your address to confirm you are a constituent). They're taking a tally of opinions. That might seem minor, but given that not many people usually bother to call in, even 10 phone calls on the same issue on the same day can be very significant!

3. Get some help to simplify the issue
If you're working with a classy group like RESULTS or Bread for the World, they'll have talking points with all the info you need. Any advocacy organization worth it's salt will provide you with bullet points and a sample script that you can customize yourself.  Action sheets and websites simplify the issue and walk you through the steps of the call with a script.

4. You can totally use notes!
(Pssst) You're on a phone. This is not Skype. They can't see you! Here's a secret I've never told anyone before, but I'm sharing with the world for the first time here...I write my name at the top of my paper. Yes. I am literally reading when I say my name. C'mon...if I can't say my own name credibly, how do you think the rest of the call would go? Using a cheat sheet is not cheating.

5. Calling can be more fun with friends
Remember how I said that even 10 phone calls on the same issue together can make a difference? Have a little call-in party. Each call only lasts 2 minutes, so you could fit 5 people in on a short coffee break. Heck, if there is a line at Starbucks you might have your call done by the time your barista hands you your latte!

6. You can leave a message

If you are feeling totally freaked out by talking to a stranger you can’t see, it’s okay. I have a trick for you. All you have to do is call after normal working hours. When I hold training sessions for new advocates, it’s usually in the evening or on the weekends and I can see how relieved my new recruits feel when they are assured that a real person will not pick up and talk to them on their first call. Talking to an aide in real time does have more impact, but is still effective to leave a message. A real human will listen to those messages and log your opinion.

There you go! To make it even easier, here's a sample of a bare bones call for a current global education action. You can add flowery language around it and drag it out for 20-30 more seconds, but this is generally how it goes:

Aide: Hello. Congressman Clay's office. 
Me: Hi, I'm a constituent with a message for the Congressman.
Aide: Go ahead, please.
Me: I'd like him to support HR 2780, the Education for All Act to help all children around the world have access to education.
Aide: Thank you, may I have your zip code?
Me: 63104
Aide: Thank you. Have a good day.
Me: Thank you. You, too.

Tah-dah! Not so bad, is it? Now, give it a try! Use this website to find your U.S. Representative if you don't know who it is, then use the script above to take action for the 57 million primary-school age kids in the world with no access to education. Here's an action sheet from RESULTS to learn more about it before you call, but for the mechanics of the call itself, you have everything you need.

Before you know it you'll be simultaneously folding laundry and changing the world like all the cool mom-advocates. Pick up the phone and save the world!

Image: Book cover

Buy an autographed copy of "From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates and How to Get Started" at my website www.changyit.com or order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any independent bookstore!