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.