The Ghanaian intellectual James Emman Aggrey was not mistaken when he said, in the early 1920s
“To educate a man is to educate an individual. To educate a woman is to educate an entire nation.”
Indeed, a girl is able to accomplish a lot if we stop and look beyond her gender. International Day of the Girl was created on 11 October 2011 to raise awareness of the status of the girl child in the world but also to give girls a voice so that they can be heard… Today, 10 years after its creation, can we say that girls now have the same rights as boys? Are girls free to express their opinions and concerns? Unfortunately, equal rights are an ongoing battle for girls in some underdeveloped countries like Burkina Faso. To this day, Burkina Faso still has the 7th highest child marriage rate in the world, a disparity in education with 66% of boys attending school against 55% of girls, and an increasing number of missed classes among girls due to period poverty.
Girl Now Woman Later will join the efforts of many other nonprofits to help improve these statistics in the coming years.Let’s celebrate International Day of the Girl today because Girls deserve it! And tomorrow, let’s continue fighting the battle for equal rights for girls … Happy International Day of the Girl!
