Why Educate Girls?

Because the Clock is Ticking....

The Girl Effect

Here are three key reasons that sum up the importance of keeping girls in school:

1. Girls are agents of change

Adolescent girls have the potential to play a role as key agents of positive change for their families and wider communities. By investing in their economic potential through education and by delaying child marriage and teen pregnancy, issues such as HIV and AIDS can be resolved and the cycle of poverty can be broken.

2. Girls are being left out

The issue in Kenya is that this potential is so often never realized. Once children complete primary school, typically aged 12, education is no longer free. Therefore, it is common for families who have very little or no income to arrange for their daughters to be married soon after. Boys have a much greater chance of being put through school. Meanwhile, the married girls will stay at home with their husbands families, mostly unaware of their own potential and voice. They will mind the cows and goats, collect water, cook, go to market, and have babies.... and so the cycle continues.

3. The cost of excluding girls is high.

In Africa, adolescent pregnancy results in nearly $10 billion in lost potential income. In Uganda, 85 per cent of girls leave school early, resulting in $10 billion in lost potential earnings. By delaying child marriage and early birth for one million girls, Bangladesh could potentially add $69 billion to the national income over these girls' lifetimes. This applies to Kenya too.

For details specific to Laikipia in Kenya (the area in which we work), please download
the PPT to your right:

When we help keep a girl out of childhood marriage and motherhood and in school, we are giving her the chance to develop a voice of her own, and the chance to obtain the skills, qualifications and self-confidence that they need to find work and independence as adults.

This is why The Amazing Maasai Girls Project commits to supporting each girl through all 4 years of secondary school. This is why we ask you to help us.