The International Day of the Girl Child, October 11th gives people and organizations the opportunity to raise public awareness of the different types of discrimination and abuse that many girls around the world suffer from. On this day, many community and political leaders talk to the public about the importance of girls’ right to equal education and their fundamental freedoms. Various events are held to showcase the work that people are doing to empower girls through active support and engagement with parents, families, and the wider community.

How is Ba Nga Afayo Initiative Involved?

Too many girls in our community, because of who they are or where they’re born, face unique challenges. Girls are too often barred from education, forced into child marriage or even stolen by traffickers in hope of finding jobs – their very lives and futures are at risk. Together, we will reach every last girl, empowering her to grow up healthy, educated and safe. We’ll do whatever it takes for girls, transforming their lives and the future we share.

Why we also fight poverty by focusing on girls and women?

It’s simple: In the world’s poorest communities, girls and women bear the effect of poverty. Fighting poverty in these communities requires focusing on girls and women to achieve equality. When families struggle to grow enough food to eat, or earn enough money to send all their kids to school, it’s the girls who are often the last to eat and first to be kept home from school.

In these same communities, it’s the women who are frequently denied the right to own the land they’ve farmed their entire lives. And where girls and women are denied freedom to leave their homes or walk down a street, they struggle to earn a living, attend school or even visit a doctor.

But girls and women aren’t just the faces of the poverty; they’re also the key to overcoming it. At Ba Nga Afayo Initiative, we know that when you empower a girl or a woman, she becomes a catalyst for positive change whose success benefits everyone around her.