The upward spiral
Educate a man, and you educate one person; educate a woman, and you educate an entire family. African folk saying
With an education, girls and women:
Educating girls is a more effective means for reducing population growth than are family planning programs. For every three years of schooling a mother has received, she has one less child. Virtually every measure of social, political and economic progress is enhanced by the education of girls, who go on to mother a more productive and prosperous generation.
"Study after study has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS."
Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General
What is poverty?
In the developed world we may think of poverty as having to live without the conveniences of the middle class. Such poverty can be found throughout the United States, and yet this is a deeply deficient understanding of poverty in the developing world.
The World Bank, the United Nations, UNICEF and other global organizations measure poverty in the developing world as living on less than $1.25 a day. One and a half billion people, 70% of them women and girls, are poor by this definition. Most of them are not living at the poverty line, but below it, often far below.
The international poverty line is 1/12 of the poverty line in the U.S. A poor person in the developing world survives--or doesn't survive--on a cost of living approximately equal to a cat or dog in the U.S. Poverty in the developed world and poverty in the developing world are worlds apart.
How can people live on an income too low to have the necessities of life? The fact is that they don't--they die. Life expectancies in the developing world are ten to forty years less than in the U.S., as little as half a lifetime here. Many of the world's poor live no longer than they would have lived 2,000 years ago.
Ten million children die of poverty every year. That's more deaths than from any disease or famine, more than have died in any year of any war in history. It's one every three seconds.
Overcoming poverty
Girls born into poverty commonly receive little or no education and are not taught the skills necessary to earn an income. They do not learn about sanitation, nutrition and health care, which would prevent 90% of the illness in their families when they become mothers.
Fifty million girls in the developing world are not in school. These girls, and others with little education, begin raising families soon after puberty, beginning still another generation of poverty-stricken families. Poverty is a vicious cycle that reproduces itself--a cycle that the average poor girl does not escape.
All too often today, developing countries are achieving rapid rates of economic growth that leave the lives of their poor unchanged. And yet, other countries have reduced their poverty to levels below those in America. The difference between these two outcomes is in providing, or not providing, an equal education to girls.
Educated girls do not become mothers at puberty. Educated mothers have fewer, healthier and better educated children, which begins to move their family out of poverty.
When the children of educated mothers begin their own families they also have fewer, healthier and better educated children. Each generation moves further out of poverty, reducing infant and maternal mortality and increasing life expectancy for the entire family.
The education of girls creates an upward spiral that lasts beyond their lifetime, breaking the cycle of poverty for their families. Men may produce economic growth, but it is women who produce human development.
Claudia's story
Claudia's mother did not have the money for her to go to middle school, and so she was working as a maid, helping to support her family. Then she was given a scholarship to return to school, first by CBB's predecessor organization and then by CBB.
Claudia never needed very much, earning most of her education expenses herself and asking only for what she lacked. With her scholarships, Claudia was able to complete middle school, then high school, and finally university training as a professional nurse.
Along with a team of ten assistants whom she trained herself, Claudia provided pre- and post-natal care to women and their newborns in 26 Mayan mountain villages of Guatemala. She attended the mothers and 400 newborns a year, visiting them in their villages every month. Under her care, the deaths of children under five years of age declined from twelve a year to four--that's eight lives a year that Claudia was saving.
Claudia now is responsible for the health care of 18 rural villages in another remote area of Guatemala. Again, she visits each village every month, functioning in fact as the village doctor.
