The importance of girls.

Take a few moments to watch the above video.  It is a message of hope, a sign of strength and the heart of courage.  Many of us can't imagine what it must have taken to stand up to her family and culture the way this girl did.

It is amazing, but even more it is important.

Most of you probably don't realize that cultures with less women than men are more likely to be violent and go to war.  You probably know on an intellectual level that women and girls are marginalized in many (too many) places around the world.  What you don't understand are the real stories behind that pat word "marginalized."  They are:

• The 14 year old girl who has a very simple complication in childbirth (one that American doctors fix as as a matter of course) and she dies trying to walk to a clinic days away from her village.
• The girl who watches her brother go to school and earn a good living while she is all but sold to a husband at 13 or 14 years old.
• The young woman who isn't allowed to own property or handle money who watches her husband gamble and drink away the money to feed their children. She must choose which child to feed with what little she has.

There are good stories, too.

• The girl who is allowed to finish school and is able to support her family with an income.
• The young woman who is given a micro-loan, starts a business, and invests most of her profits into the business and her family.
• The young woman with a small job reinvesting in her children's future by sending all of them to school, boys and girls.

How do you turn the bad into the good?  Show up.  Spend a little time to discover what is working and send some donations.  I'll bet you spend more time planning your vacation than you think about where you are donating money (and it doesn't take much money; very little, in fact.)  Go to girleffect.com and read the media kit to get some links to organizations that are really helping.  Read Half the Sky: turning oppression into opportunity to get other ideas.

Don't turn away- do something.  Talk about it.  Think about it.  Get involved.  I did; I blogged today.  If you have a blog, post about it this week and get the word out.  Change the world, or at least change it for one girl at a time.