Girl Effect Fund

Dear Girl Effect Supporters,

Thanks to your continued generosity, The Girl Effect Fund has raised more than $230,000 on GlobalGiving for its beneficiary organizations.

The Girl Effect tells us that if we invest in a girl, she will do the rest.

The following project updates demonstrate this very principle. Here’s a few ways that your investments in the world’s girls are paying off:

From mentoring to monetary stability in Bangladesh and Tanzania... In Bangladesh, BRAC’s girls’ clubs provide classes on topics from financial literacy to job training, are fueling girls’ futures by creating pathways to financial stability. So far, • 50 adolescent girls clubs are up and running; • 50 teenage leaders have been trained to mentor the girls; and, • about 2,000 girls have become active members in the program’s classes.

All 20 of BRAC’s clubs in Tanzania are in operation, serving about 580 girls. Starting in February 2010, the program began offering income generation courses which provide financial lessons the girls use when they take out microcredit loans to start their own businesses.

From facing abuse alone to standing with others in Pakistan... The Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund is a program of Equality Now that supports and publicizes strategically selected legal cases that represent the most common and significant human rights abuses of adolescent girls.

The campaign is currently assisting a girl in Pakistan with court proceedings related to brutal incest by her father. Encouraged by her mother and her mother’s family, the case began despite police attempts to discourage it. Despite a long, slow trial ahead of her, the girl is now living with her mother and her mother’s siblings and has just finished her 9th grade board exams. Equality Now plans to visit Pakistan to help provide support.

Turning basic science supplies to science stars in Uganda... At the end of 2009, the Harambee Center outfitted the St. Andrew’s Secondary School’s physics lab—which serves 200 girls—with 25 tables, 50 stools, and chemicals and tools required for studies related to the Uganda National Examinations.

Two of the students, Margret and Prossy, explain that this equipment has meant getting “more practice…more confidence, and…more morale.” Overall, the girls say, “We thank our generous donors for their continued support!”

Thank you for investing in The Girl Effect. We’ll be in touch soon with more updates on how you are helping change the world by changing the lives of girls.

Sincerely, The GlobalGiving Team

Hello Girl Effect Supporters,

It’s time for another update on all the exciting things that have been accomplished because of your generous contributions in the last few months. There has been a great deal of activity with the Girl Effect and its related projects, and this worthy cause continues to gain momentum as time goes on! The Nike Foundation’s girl-related efforts are mentioned in Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book, "Half the Sky," which is getting a large amount of press attention from venues that vary from morning news shows to The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In the last few months, we’ve added a new project to the beneficiary list of Girl Effect-related projects, we’ve had a few friends visit some of the projects and send us personal accounts of how things are going, and we’ve had quite a few of our existing projects expand in breadth and scope. Here are some examples: • The Harambee Center is the newest addition to the list of Girl Effect Fund beneficiaries. They are equipping science classrooms with labs for 200 girls in Uganda. Science courses and lab work is compulsory in Uganda, but until now most girls didn’t have equal access to equipment or labs. • Leah Ambwaya, a professional evaluator working with Excelsior, is visiting a number of GlobalGiving projects in Kenya this year, including Equality Now’s project, Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund. Despite her much more extensive description of the visit, her thoughts on Equality Now can be best summed up by her response to the question of what she would tell her friends about this project: “Incredible. You need to see this!” • The Berhane Hewan project, working in Ethiopia, is one of the first rigorously evaluated programs to delay the age of marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the success of the program, it is scheduled to expand into additional communities. Additionally, the message is spreading widely throughout Ethiopia; the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and the Population Council started a national campaign to raise awareness throughout Ethiopia.

Thank you for your continued support to these commendable causes. We have now raised more than $150,000 for Girl Effect-related causes, and due to your generosity and the amazing viral nature of the Girl Effect video, that number and its affects continue to grow.

Sincerely, The GlobalGiving Team