The Girl Effect: Giving Young Women a Chance

Here is my latest blog for The New Internationalist: I invite fellow bloggers to join the Girl Effect blogging campaign.

The Girl Effect Blogging Campaign 2011 officially kicked off on 4 October. The campaign, spearheaded by blogger Tara Mohr, is really all about recognizing the potential of adolescent girls in the developing world.

I found out about the campaign through another blogger, Roxanne Krystalli, and I felt compelled to contribute to it in whatever way I can. For how can I not when I see the need for it within my own country?

There’s no limit to the list of things that could help girls recognize their full potential while at the same time preserving their dignity.

In my part of the world, the lack of access to quality education, especially in impoverished areas, makes it difficult for girls to get out of their desperate situations.

Joining this campaign brought back memories of my trip last year to a far-flung village in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The place is called South Upi, and it is so remote that there is no electricity.

I visited the village last year to blog about how the residents survived the country’s very first automated elections. I met a girl who told me that people there are considered lucky if they can buy themselves even a single piece of underwear. The sad thing is that she’s not exaggerating things. The place is as poor as one can imagine.

 ^{Girls at school in the Philippines. Photo by Trishhhh under a CC Licence}

‘The lives of the people here are at a standstill,’ I wrote last year for the Think About It global blogging competition. ‘The men spend the whole year toiling kernels of corn in distant farms that are not their own. They earn only once a year, which is during harvest season when they sell their produce to the markets in Cotabato, a province five hours away. This happens only if rodents have not feasted on their crops. The rest of the year they eat whatever vegetables they can harvest. The women while away their time waiting for their men to come home after spending the whole day at the farm. The children of Kuhan, who look half their age from lack of proper nutrition, spend the time playing on the dry earth. They play on wheelbarrows used by their fathers to transport crops. They play on broken benches, sticks and stones, mud and stagnant water. Their laughter reverberates in the air.’

Going back to the Girl Effect blogging campaign, I thought about my South Upi visit because the situation there is a concrete example of how the lack of access to quality education becomes a major source of girls’ inability to get out of poverty.

Girls who are unable to go to school end up prostituted or remain trapped in their situations.

They are forced to work to get their parents out of poverty or because their parents do not have jobs. It’s a cycle of poverty and hopelessness, passed on from one generation to another.

According to statistics from the Girl Effect campaign, 600 million girls live in the developing world and approximately one quarter of them are not in school.

The same statistics shows that an extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 per cent.

Indeed, what a good quality education could do! The importance of the girl effect, really, cannot be overemphasized.

Ten Rules for Brilliant Women

I found this on the blog of Tara Mohr, an inspiring woman.

Here are ten principles for owning your brilliance and bringing it to the world:

1. Make a pact. No one else is going to build the life you want for you. No one else will even be able to completely understand it. The most amazing souls will show up to cheer you on along the way, but this is your game. Make a pact to be in it with yourself for the long haul, as your own supportive friend at every step along the way.

2. Imagine it. What does a knock-the-ball-out-of-the-park life look like for you? What is the career that seems so incredible you think it’s almost criminal to have it? What is the dream you don’t allow yourself to even consider because it seems too unrealistic, frivolous, or insane? Start envisioning it. That’s the beginning of having it.
 

3. Gasp. Start doing things that make you gasp and get the adrenalin flowing. Ask yourself, “What’s the gasp-level action here?” Your fears and a tough inner critic will chatter in your head. That’s normal, and just fine. When you hear that repetitive, irrational, mean inner critic, name it for what it is, and remember, it’s just a fearful liar, trying to protect you from any real or seeming risks. Go for the gasps and learn how false your inner critic’s narrative really is, and how conquerable your fears.
 

4. Get a thick skin. If you take risks, sometimes you’ll get a standing ovation, and sometimes, people will throw tomatoes. Can you think of any leader or innovator whom you admire who doesn’t have enthusiastic fans and harsh critics? Get used to wins and losses, praise and pans, getting a call back and being ignored. Work on letting go of needing to be liked and needing to be universally known as “a nice person.”
 

5. Be an arrogant idiot. Of course I know you won’t, because you never could. But please, just be a little more of an arrogant idiot. You know those guys around the office who share their opinions without thinking, who rally everyone around their big, (often unformed) ideas? Be more like them. Even if just a bit. You can afford to move a few inches in that direction.
 

6. Question the voice that says “I’m not ready yet.” I know, I know. Because you are so brilliant and have such high standards, you see every way that you could be more qualified. You notice every part of your idea that is not perfected yet. While you are waiting to be ready, gathering more experience, sitting on your ideas, our friends referenced in rule five are being anointed
 

7. Don’t wait for your Oscar. Don’t wait to be praised, anointed, or validated. Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to lead. Don’t wait for someone to invite you to share your voice. No one is going to discover you. (Well, actually, they will, but paradoxically, only after you’ve started boldly and consistently stepping into leadership, sharing your voice, and doing things that scare the hell out of you.)
 

8. Filter advice. Most brilliant women are humble and open to guidance. We want to gather feedback and advice. Fine, but recognize that some people won’t understand what you are up to (often because you are saying something new and ahead of your time). Some people will find you to be not their cup of tea. Some will feel threatened. Some people will want to do with your idea only what is interesting or helpful to them. So interpret feedback carefully. Test advice and evaluate the results, rather than following it wholesale.
 

9. Recover and restore. If you start doing the things that make you gasp, doing what you don’t quite feel ready to do, and being more of an arrogant idiot, you are going to be stretching out of our comfort zone–a lot. Regularly do things that feel safe, cozy, and restorative. Vent to friends when you need to. Acknowledge the steps you’ve taken. Watch your tank to see how much risk-taking juice you have available to you. When it’s running low, stop, recover and restore.
 

10. Let other women know they are brilliant. Let them know what kind of brilliance you see, and why it’s so special. Call them into greater leadership and action. Let them know that they are ready. Watch out for that subtle, probably unconscious thought, “because I had to struggle and suffer on my way up…they should have to too.” Watch out for thinking this will “take” too much time – when the truth is it always has huge, often unexpected returns.