The Girl Effect: Why Can I Write This Blog Post?
Hey, take a look at this: I am a woman in one of the poorest countries in the world, and yet, here I am in front of a computer, blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, instant messaging, Googling and much more. The odds say I shouldn’t know how to. I am one of the 48.6% literate women in Malawi. To put this in perspective, 72% of Malawian men are literate. I am one of the 31.4% of girls who finish primary school. I am also one of the 11.1% girls who finish secondary school. As for tertiary education - less than 10%. So, I have had about a 50/50 chance of knowing how to read at all, and the odds of increasing my education get slimmer and slimmer with every level. But here I am with 2 tertiary degrees, in the dawn of my career. Why? Why me? Because of my mother. And because of her mother. They recognised the importance of education, especially for girls, and two generations later, the girls in my family are smart, savvy, and paving our destinies with the choices that we have been give...