Eighth Blog Post

       Girls Learn International, a CHS chapter of an national organization, is what I am using for my genius project.  Right now our club is starting to plan a spring fundraiser.  We've spent the last few meetings researching ideas under four different categories: girl's health and clean water; technology, arts, and media; school supplies, transportation, and improvements; and human rights, leadership, and empowerment.

       GLI partners with countries that still have fewer girls than boys completing secondary school.   After we pick a category we want to support, we fundraise for it, and then send that money to GLI, who picks the place that most needs it.  It's a pretty cool process and we've been finding some amazing projects under each category like organizations that buy girls bikes with baskets so they can get to school themselves, or give girls a kit that contains reusable pads, and also functions as a way to wash their pads, and hang them to dry, or even just raising money for solar panels to power much needed technology.

       Doing this research and learning about all these projects has made me realize even further how much actually goes into a school.  It takes a lot of money and resources to create a well functioning and effective school were girls can receive a good education.  Fixing what seem like simple problems like transportation to school, or giving girls health classes and supplies to make it so they don't have to miss weeks of school due to their period, or even donating less than a dollar for pencils really makes a difference.  I can't wait til we decide what we want to fundraise for, and start planning.

Seventh Blog Post

I read "I Am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai, which is all about her story as a Pakistani girl trying to get an education in a town run by the Taliban.  Today, Malala is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and has become a strong voice for young women around the world.  Without her own resolve and determination to get an education, she would never have been able to do what she does today, and become the inspiration that she is.

Sixth Blog Post

"Investing in Girls' Education Drives Development"

An article from the Basic Education Coalition's website.

This article uses mainly logos to make it's argument for girls education.  It uses statistics about the benefits of ensuring girls' education and lists of facts that prove how important basic education is in general, and then how that pertains to benefiting girls, and thus everyone.  

S- a member of the Basic Education Coalition

O- ignorance about girls education in less developed countries

A- the general public, or anyone doing research on this topic

P- to persuade people that educating girls benefits them, society, and the economy

S- Benefits of educating girls

Tone- factual, important, logical, reasonable, persuasive

Fifth Blog Post

Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the founder of the first female boarding school in Afghanistan. She is
the cofounder of SOLA, an international campaign for women's education.  She's a
Middlebury college graduate.  But this isn't where she started. She began her education by
disguising herself as a boy and sneaking to a secret school every day.  She and almost a 
hundred other girls risked their lives every day to go to school and lived with the fear that the 
Taliban may be following them or find out where they lived.  Shabana was most influenced by
her parents, who believed that education was the most important possession you could possibly
own.  Her father used to tell her that "You can lose everything, your money, your house, your
belongings. But they can never take what's in your mind".  Shabana talks about how she lived
in danger for her whole childhood, but she believes her life would have continued that way, and
been even more dangerous, had she not gotten an education.
Shabana's story further proves the importance of girl's education.  Educated women know
more about reproductive health and safety, and boost the economy.  There's no reason not
to educate girls and women, and, proven by Shabana, no matter what laws or restrictions
are in place, girls will get an education no matter what.

Fourth Blog Post

(Prompt 7)
The goal of my genius project is to learn more about why it is important for girls to be educated around the world, and to help advocate for girl's rights by raising awareness amongst students in CHS and people in our community about these issues, and fundraising for specific causes.  I will do this through a club I started in September called Girls Learn International.  It's a national organization started by the Feminist Majority Foundation and it has over 200 chapters.  We already have over 40 members and in our meetings we plan events, such as the t-shirt making and photo campaign we held on the UN Day of the Girl, as well as listen to and discuss lessons about topics like human trafficking and health and sanitation.  We also go on field trips like going to the screening of the Malala movie and the TEDx conference.  I want my genius project to look like this club as it evolves over the school year.

Third Blog Post

For my genius project I am researching the Middle East.  The Middle East is not a region defined by a continent or borders, but it encompasses Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran (Introduction to the Middle East).  There are four major cultures within this region, Iranian, Arab, Turkish, and Israeli.  Differing cultures come with differing religions, ideals, and traditions which has caused the Middle East to be somewhat of a shatter zone that is rarely without some type of war or conflict.  Islam, the dominating religion of the Middle East, holds a lot of older values especially when it comes to gender roles.  Girls education and women's rights are not priorities, which is a huge problem in itself, and it's also part of the cause for their low ranking in infrastructure, unstable politics, and conflicts with extremists.  The geography of the Middle East is varied.  There are vast deserts,  rivers that provide rich agricultural centers, as well as mountain ranges and plateaus (Global Perspectives). 

Second Blog Post

"Ladies and gentlemen, this plight of millions of women could be changed if we think differently, if women and men think differently, if men and women in the tribal and patriarchal societies in the developing countries, if they can break a few norms of family and society, if they can abolish the discriminatory laws of the systems in their states, which go against the basic human rights of the women."

" Enrollment in a school means recognition of her identity and her name. Admission in a school means that she has entered the world of dreams and aspirations where she can explore her potentials for her future life."

"People ask me, what special is in my mentorship which has made Malala so bold and so courageous and so vocal and poised? I tell them, don't ask me what I did. Ask me what I did not do. I did not clip her wings, and that's all."

 

- Ziauddin Yousafzai

These three quotes are from a TED talk by Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai.  Malala is a teenage girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for corresponding with BBC about the state of girls rights in Pakistan, and miraculously survived.  He was speaking about how important it is for a girl to get an education, about how both he and his daughter risked their lives daily just to fight for this basic right.  He is saying that global crisis' could be solved by merely letting girls into school in underdeveloped countries.  In the second quote he talks about what it means to a girl to be admitted into school.  It changes their world.  However, I think third quote is the most powerful.  He is not taking credit for what Malala has done, but credited her education.  The fact that he did not "clip her wings" opened up a world of possibilities for her future, and she's already doing amazing things with it.