International Day of the Girl Child – 11th October

11 October 2020 – International Day of the Girl Child

Today marks 25 years that the world commemorates the Girl Child day under the theme “My voice, our equal future”. This day came up as a result of the 1995 Beijing Declaration on women’s rights and gender equality seeking to advance the goals of equality, development, and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity. This event aims at raising awareness in the fight for the rights of the girl child, to address the challenges of girls and to empower them for a brighter future and for the fulfillment of human rights, and the KGB-HealthyLivingFoundation joins its voice for the equal future of women to raise awareness on the girl’s education. Although this year’s celebration is marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the aim of addressing challenges pertaining to girls and empowering them shouldn’t be looked down upon.

According to UNESCO estimates, 130 million girls between 6 to 17-year-olds are out of school and 15 million girls of primary-school-age – half of them in Sub-Saharan Africa- will never enter a classroom. This shows that girls face problems of education, some are being denied the right to education which is one of the challenges. Others include poverty, discrimination, assault, abuse, child marriage, etc. Many think education is all about schooling, but education is primarily a home duty from the parents and also a societal duty. Below are some of the ways parents, society play a vital role in the education of girls.

Parental duty

Establish some rules or norms

Norms are defined as standards (which could be religious, cultural, social, and domestic). Each home has established norms that children should follow such as praying together, cooking with the girl child assisting, etc.

Create friendship with your girl child

Good and constant communication between parents and their child create a strong bond which is needed in the child’s education.

Girl child empowerment

Every child has a dream which requires empowerment to creativity, hard work, value, self-esteem to pursue that dream. Such empowerment from the parents brings out the potentials of the child. Thus, the parent’s empowerment is the foundation of a successful education.

Societal duty

According to Carol Bellamy, a girl’s education is the single best investment that any society can make, this means, a society that promotes girl’s education is more likely to be developed than a society that doesn’t. This can only be feasible if they do the following:

Give value to women: putting an end to the belief that a woman’s sole duty is to take care of a home, be in the kitchen, and reshaping the idea of child marriage because each human has a potential that should be exploited in the world.

Aid their learning processes

By empowering girls especially the less privileged and creating a conducive environment for learning, that is, providing classroom and all the necessary materials for studies., As Michelle Obama once said: “No country can flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens.” Thus, investing in girls’ education (will bring out their potentials) is of utmost importance in developing a country.

By Yipa Glwadys