The key to seeing every girl in school: local education leaders
Malala believes on the ground advocates are the answer to seeing every girl in school and solving the world’s most pressing problems.
“If one girl with an education can change the world, what can 130 million do?”
Malala posed this question at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event in New York last week. The event brought together changemakers from around the world to discuss how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a set of goals that United Nations member states pledged to achieve by 2030 — they include ending poverty, eliminating hunger and seeing every child in school.
Malala stated that girls’ education is essential to achieving every SDG: “None of the goals we’re discussing today — not a single one — can be accomplished unless we educate girls.”
Studies show that girls’ education has the power to grow economies, improve the air we breathe, cut in half the risk of violent conflict and advance public health.
But with more than 130 million girls out of school today, there is no easy solution. The barriers to girls’ education differ between communities and countries. This is why Malala believes that local activists and educators are best placed to develop solutions.
But local advocates often lack the resources and opportunities they need to scale their impact. Malala Fund’s latest initiative — the Gulmakai Network — supports local leaders who are on the frontlines in the fight for girls’ education. The network connects these leaders, who we call Gulmakai Champions, to each other and to the tools, training and partners they need to spark social and systemic change.
Malala invited two Gulmakai Champions — Rotimi Olawale from Nigeria and Gulalai Ismail from Pakistan — to join her at the Goalkeepers event and discuss the impact of their work. In its inaugural year, Malala Fund’s first cohort of 10 Gulmakai Champions will directly impact 200,000 girls and indirectly impact more than five million students through advocacy and policy change.
Learn more about Rotimi and Gulalai and their work to see every girl in school.
Rotimi Olawale, YouthHubAfrica, Nigeria
At the start of his career, Rotimi worked with a Nigerian organisation that offered leadership training for women and men. He was organising a workshop and received just over a thousand applications from potential participants — one thousand of those applicants were men.
Rotimi couldn’t believe the result. He asked himself: “Why don’t we receive more women applicants? When opportunities like this exist, why don’t we have equal female participation?”
He realised the issue began with girls not having access to education. Although Nigeria is the richest African nation, it has more out-of-school girls than anywhere in the world. Failing to educate girls means failing to prepare them for professional opportunities as women.
Rotimi now works with his organisation, YouthHubAfrica, to advocate for passage of the Child’s Right Act in all of Nigeria’s states. The Child’s Right Act would guarantee children the right to education through junior secondary school — and outlaw marriage before age 18. Twenty-five states have passed this law, while 11 states, mainly in Northern Nigeria where the majority of out-of-school girls live, have not.
With support from Malala Fund, Rotimi is holding workshops to train local media to report on the issue and progress on passage of the Child Rights Act in their communities. They’ve gained attention at the national level and are gaining momentum in several states yet to pass the act.
During his remarks, Rotimi highlighted the impact of local advocates when given the right resources: “Everyday we take small but important steps to break down barriers preventing girls from completing their education. When we receive proper support — as is the case with the Gulmakai Network — our steps become strides.”
Gulalai Ismail, Aware Girls, Pakistan
At 13, Gulalai watched as her 15-year-old cousin was taken out of school and forced to marry a man twice her age.
She saw her cousin’s dreams of becoming a pilot slip away and knew that girls across Pakistan faced similar fates. She couldn’t let this continue. So Gulalai founded Aware Girls, an organisation to help girls in Pakistan develop leadership skills and teach them to advocate for their rights.
Through the Gulmakai Network, Gulalai is able to connect with other like-minded activists to conduct joint research on the barriers preventing Pakistani girls in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from completing secondary school. The results of this research will be a powerful advocacy tool for Gulalai as she works to increase girls’ secondary school enrolment and retention in Pakistan.
Malala knows that local leaders, like Rotimi and Gulalai, are on the frontlines, but they’re the last to get funding. They have innovative programmes they want to scale, but too little support for their work. By investing in the work of these education champions, Malala Fund invests in the future of every girl.
Thanks to the generosity of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and their #GOALKEEPERS17 campaign, all donations made to Malala Fund’s Facebook page will be matched dollar for dollar up to $125,000.
If you believe, as Malala does, that we can see every girl in school in her lifetime, please donate today.
