Kids helping kids
Because I am a Girl
SchoolAid and Plan in Australia have joined together to launch the 'Because I am a Girl' campaign in Aussie schools!*TEACHERS! Your school could win a $1000 DealsDirect gift voucher simply by registering your participation in any SchoolAid program or campaign for the Awards! The winner in this amazing competition will be announced 1 December 2011, thanks to SchoolAid's newest Awards partner, DealsDirect. Click here for more information! The campaign helps Aussie primary school kids understand (in a positive and age-appropriate way) how gender inequality and discrimination impacts on girls and young women in many societies. |
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We ask schools and students to join this campaign to promote the rights of girls around the world, and learn how education can assist to lift manyout of poverty. Across the globe, millions of girls and young women find themselves at the bottom of the social and economic ladder in their communities, deprived of the same opportunities as boys. SchoolAid and Plan are working with Aussie schools to change this! GET YOUR SCHOOL INVOLVED TOO! Register your interest by email, check out the website for inspiration, and let us know what activities and learnings your students engage in. We will be regularly showcasing schools' inspirational work, so keep in touch! Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the moment news and updates on this campaign! |
It's so easy to get involved - HERE'S HOW: |
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1. Register your interest with SchoolAid at admin@schoolaid.org.au 2. Using your interactive whiteboard or school laptops, encourage your class to spend time looking through the Because I am a Girl website. 3. Utilising the guided classroom lesson plan, check out the 'Because I am a Girl' website, and hold a class discussion session about how the issues of discrimination and gender inequality affect girls and young women in many societies around the world, and get your students to think about what needs to take place for this to change. 4. Teachers - encourage your students to write and draw to convey their thoughts about these issue. Put together a fundraising activity (be creative!) for the Because I am a Girl campaign, and send your funds to SchoolAid! |
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Sara Haghdoosti ~ SchoolAid's Patron for the 'Because I am a Girl' campaign and youth activist and high profile member of Australia's Iranian Community "I'm incredibly excited to be SchoolAid's Patron for the Because I am a Girl campaign. I believe it's so important that we remember there are thousands of young girls and women all around the world who are still fighting to gain access to conditions and rights that we here in Australia take for granted every day. I'm excited about the Because I am a Girl campaign because it will empower young Australians to establish connections across borders and to help each other grow and broaden horizons together." *Sara is also an Ambassador for SchoolAid's Kids Helping Kids Awards 2011. Read more about this here. |
Because I am a Girl 'Leading Schools' are already getting to work - check out the Charity Captains at the Presbyterian Ladies' College Sydney!"Presbyterian Ladies' College Sydney has a long and rich history of encouraging its students to engage with issues of significance relating to values education - including compassion, empathy, gender equity and service to the community." "Our Junior School was compelled to become a leading school in the 'Because I am a Girl' campaign because the central issues are of such importance to our students, and help them gain knowledge and perspective about how gender inequity and discrimination continue to affect the lives of millions of their contemporaries across the world. We look forward to working with other Australian schools to educate both boys and girls on how their actions can really have an impact and help change lives." - Narelle Barker, Head of Junior School at Presbyterian Ladies' College.
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"Milpera State High School in Brisbane is a true torch-bearer for a better world because its purpose is to help immigrant, refugee and asylum seeker children to start a new life in Australia, thereby allowing them to embrace the values of equity, tolerance and respect. The school environment is one of harmony in action. There are many cultures working and playing together, actively demonstrating that the dream for a oneness-world is not only possible but also achievable. Part of the torch glows for the strengthening and empowering of the young girls and women at Milpera through providing a first class education to them, so that they may stride forth equiped with excitiing choices for their future. Milpera State High School is proud to be a leading school in the SchoolAid 'Because I am A Girl' campaign." - Adele Rice, Principal, Milpera State High School, Brisbane |
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"Wilderness School is committed to preparing girls for their role as responsible global citizens by developing a knowledge of, and empathy for, the inequalities that exist within our local, national and global communities. We are passionate about being a leading school in the 'Because I Am A Girl' campaign because it is designed to fight gender inequality, promote girls' rights and reduce the number of young girls in poverty. We are excited about being a part of a campaign which will empower young women and we look forward to working with other young people who are striving to achieve our same goals." - Isabelle Linde, Service Learning Coordinator. Wilderness School. |
| Research has shown that girls in many communities around the world are more likely to suffer from malnutrition; be forced into an early marriage; and not have access to education or the same experiences as their male counterparts. |
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During the five years that Plan International have been working on the Because I am a Girl initiative, it has become increasingly clear that unless young men and boys are involved alongside their sisters in challenging unequal power relationships and working towards social justice and human rights, gender equality will remain a distant dream. The upcoming 2011 report looks at the importance of engaging boys and young men in the fight for gender equality. Together with their sisters, boys can help ensure that girls go to school, that they are safe from violence, that they are not married at a young age or against their will, that they do not bear the whole burden of work in the household and that they can earn a living and play their part in society. |
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Because I am a Girl- written by Liz Ginis
5 August 2011
When I was little, my mother put a sticker on the back bumper of our family car. It read: "It's no longer a trade secret, girls can do anything" and was accompanied by an image of a spanner.
I remember feeling bolstered by the message and thinking "I can do and be whatever I want in life." And I did. I climbed mountains and abseiled over waterfalls. I jumped out of planes and plumbed the inky depths of caves. I hiked for days on end through the bush, dodging black snakes and washing in rivers.
As a young twenty-something I took the obligatory trip overseas, by myself, not once but twice, and lived across continents and faced the world on my own terms. And I loved it. Coming home, I worked as a journalist and was lucky enough to have a job that allowed me to dip in and out of people's lives - I camped with the Mutitjulu people in the shadow of Uluru, I flew across the flooded expanse of Lake Eyre in an ultralight with a local who waxed lyrical about the many gifts of the Australia's outback, I swam with manta rays, watched a reef shark try to take a nip out of a fellow diver, whistled along the snow behind a team of sled dogs, and climbed to the rim of an active volcano.
So far, I've lead a pretty eventful and blessed life and now, looking back, I wonder if any of it would have been possible without the belief that that simple sticker extolled?
For many girls around the world, however, belief isn't enough. Opportunities for girls are virtually non-existent - they face double discrimination due to their gender and age, leaving them at the bottom of the social ladder and more likely to suffer from malnutrition, be forced into an early marriage, be subject to violence or intimidation.
Because I am a Girl, a recently launched online campaign that aims to foster positive understanding of the issues facing girls and young women throughout the world, is being offered to Australian primary school children.
The joint project of the non-profit organisations SchoolAid and Plan International Australia (Plan) hopes to encourage and nurture philanthropy, empathy and compassion in Australian children, and in doing so help them to understand how their actions can help to empower girls in societies worldwide.
Plan's chief executive Ian Wishart said that "Investing in girls can literally lift entire nations out of poverty. The unique power to bring about social change extends to boys and girls here in Australia, so we're inviting them, to become part of a global movement for girls' rights everywhere."
As one girl who has held the world in her hands, I hope schools around the country jump aboard this train. Toot sweet.
(Courtesy of www.webchild.com.au )
Inspiration from past projects.
21 July 2011
Have a look at these inspirational projects from different countries around the world!
(All photographs are courtesy of Plan in Australia)
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Plan-supported Early Childhood Care & Development (ECCD) playgroup in a sponsorship area near Alieu in Timor-Leste. The playgroup has been running for five years and operates three times a week for two hours, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. |
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A Nepalese girl is free of her kamalari contract (where young girls from indigenous families work in private homes, where they risk being exploited) and with the help of Plan's kamalari abolition program, she has started her own roadside café business. |
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As part of Plan program ethnic minority girls from Vietnam actively participate to make their school friendlier and an enjoyable learning experience. |
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Plan Ghana created a girl's soccer program and one of the requirements for playing is keeping up attendance in school. |
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Plan works closely with the El Salvador Government in developing better learning models. As education gets more visual and entertaining, students get more involved and motivated in their own learning process. The creative art also helps develop motorical, logical and arithmetic skills, explains one teacher. |
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Plan aims to strengthen the primary education in Laos for girls belonging to ethnic minorities, of whom only half even begin primary school. |
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Members of a child rights club in Zambia sing songs to raise awareness on HIV and AIDS. |
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This young girl from Bangladesh is a member of a Plan youth group set up to support child labourers. |
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Plan youths attend Constitutional Court for the respect and application of children's rights in the Colombian legislation. |
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Public gathering in Dang District in Nepal to protest against the tradition of sending daughters to serve in the house of a family's landlord. |
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