IN MUCH OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD, LIFE IS EXCEEDINGLY DIFFICULT for men, but even more difficult for women. Due to cultural bias, and a history of men being in charge and making the key decisions, women are often treated as second-class citizens. Most of society’s, and the family’s, choices are optimized for the men. The women’s voices are not heard, and their opinions (and often their lives) are treated as expendable.
I believe that much of this bias starts from a young age, when the boys are sent off to school and the girls remain at home to work or to take care of their younger siblings. The message sent to the boys is that they are superior, and that their parents are willing to make the long-term investment in their education. The girls receive the exact opposite message. It should therefore not be a surprise when men exhibit biased attitudes, and when uneducated women show a profound lack of self-confidence. What we learn at age five or age ten stays with us for life.
There are, of course, other cultural issues and biases that create this inequality. Disparity in access to education is both a promulgator and a reflection of the problem. Closing this gap is a powerful way to plant the seeds for a more equitable society. Girls who are educated know their own worth. Boys who go to school alongside girls are more likely to treat the other gender as being equal.
Proof of these vast gender gaps is provided by the education statistics. In Nepal, as just one of many stark examples, adult male illiteracy is a staggering 39 percent. But for Nepali women, the situation is even worse, with 75 percent of adult women unable to read or write a simple sentence.
It’s a pattern repeated throughout the developing world. The United Nations estimates that two-thirds of the 850 million illiterate people in the world are female. This problem perpetuates itself, since an uneducated mother will have less knowledge to pass down to the next generation. The effect is felt by every child a woman bears. My friend Usha, who helps run a wonderful girls’ education program in Nepal, always says, “When you educate a boy, you educate just the boy. But when you educate a girl, you educate the whole family, and the next generation.”
It has always seemed apparent to our team that if we want to create lasting social change in the developing world, the best thing we can do is to get girls in school from a young age and help keep them there through the end of secondary school. They will grow up empowered and self-confident and will have increased earning power and economic independence. Room to Read set up the Room to Grow girls’ scholarship program in the hopes of changing lives, one girl, then one family, at a time.
INDIA IS A COUNTRY WHERE GIRLS TOO OFTEN SUFFER FROM BIAS against women. A common wish to a bride is “May you be the mother of a hundred sons.” Favoritism toward boys is shown by another quote: “To give birth to a son is like witnessing a sunrise in heaven. A daughter is like having an uninvited guest at the banquet.”
Anita, a 15-year-old girl from an underprivileged family in New Delhi, was introduced to Room to Read’s local staff during her brave fight to gain an education. It was an uphill battle. Her parents together earned less than $400 per year and were struggling to support themselves and their four children. Perpetually short on cash, they frequently pressured Anita to drop out of school so that they could avoid the monthly fees. For many years she was able to argue successfully to continue her education. One day, as she prepared to enter ninth grade, she was given the bad news: Her parents told her that this time they were firm in their decision to no longer pay her school fees. She was 15, and it was time to get married.
Anita argued that a complete education would allow for many more opportunities than would marriage at a young age. But her parents were just as stubborn at arguing their point of view—it was time for her to leave school and get married so that a husband could have the burden of providing for her.
Anita discussed her plight with a local teacher, breaking down in tears as she talked about her love of school. How could she be forced out when she had not even started grade nine? The sympathetic teacher said that she had one possible salvation: the Room to Grow girls’ scholarship program.
Anita was excited as she visualized her return to school. She told her parents about the opportunity and gained their commitment that she could stay in school as long as Room to Read paid her school fees.
With her teacher friend in tow, Anita confidently approached a member of the local selection committee to make her case. But before she could even get started, she was dismayed to hear the news: the committee had already finalized their choices for scholarship recipients and the program was full for the year. Anita had missed her opportunity.
She protested vehemently and made a strong case for support. “If you do not help me to stay in school, I will be married within a year and will be stuck at an eighth-grade level of education. My husband will have more schooling that I have, and he will use that to rule over me. How can you tell me that you will not help me to avoid this?”
Her persistence and heartfelt desire to gain an education impressed the member of the selection committee. He promised to talk to the other committee members about whether they could make an exception and allow Anita to join the program.
Two days later a nervous Anita heard the news: extra funding had been promised by Room to Read to pay her school fees. In addition, a small stipend was budgeted to allow her to have a tutor. The team was concerned that since her parents were not wholeheartedly supportive of education, it would be best if Anita had a mentor dedicated to helping her study during the after-school hours.
Today, Anita beams with joy as she walks to school. At her side is her younger sister, for whom Anita has become a role model. Sunisha, a charming sixth-grader, has vowed to follow Anita’s example and stay in school through age 18 so that she also can gain a complete education. Anita has not only raised the bar for her younger sister, but will do the same when she eventually has children of her own.
As much as I like having rules and structure at Room to Read, I encourage our selection committees everywhere to keep making exceptions like this one! Fortunately, in each country Room to Read has strong female program officers on staff who reach out to local communities to find girls who would benefit from long-term scholarships.
FOUR HUNDRED MILES EAST OF ANITA AND HER SCHOOL IN NEW DELHI, nine-year-old Sujina Tuladhar is a direct beneficiary of the female program officers who run Room to Grow in each country in which Room to Read operates. In Nepal, the program has been run by two strong local women—Shilpi and Nebedita. Both grew up in families that stressed the importance of education for women, and they attended university as a result. They are now working to provide these same opportunities to girls in Nepal. When they run into a girl like Sujina, they work long hours to learn her story and find a way to get her in school.
Sujina is nine years old and in the third grade. Neither of her parents finished high school. When she was eight years old, her father died tragically in a motorcycle accident. Her mother, a housewife, had never held a full-time job.
Sujina and her mother did not have any family willing to help. The marriage had been between different castes, and both sides of the family shunned the couple and their charming young daughter. The mother has had no luck finding a job, due to her own lack of education, and Nepal’s anemic economy. As happens too often in the world, short-term economic hardship would mean the loss of the long-term opportunity inherent in education. Sujina would have to drop out of school.
During one of their outreach trips to talk to headmasters and local government officials, Shilpi and Nebedita were told this sad story. They visited the family to learn about their living conditions. The family owned no property and had moved in with the maternal grandmother. In Sujina’s eyes, the Room to Read team members saw a zeal for education. They interviewed her mother separately. She expressed hope that “my daughter be educated, so that she can handle difficult situations and not suffer like I have.”
Within a month, Sujina was one of the newest Room to Grow scholars in Nepal. As with all of our girls, we have budgeted to allow her to continue to study through the end of high school.
SOME PEOPLE MAY ASK, “WHY, AS A MAN, DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT education for girls? Isn’t this more of a women’s issue?” Absolutely not.
I have faced those questions on numerous occasions. Indeed, groups have sometimes asked us to present slide shows on our girls’ scholarship program, but have inquired whether…er…well…could we have a female staff member make the presentation instead of me? I have politely replied that this request felt like misguided political correctness. Can only women be concerned with the future of young girls? Didn’t it benefit the civil rights movement to have all races of people fighting for equality?
My concern is that if we cordon off the issue of education for girls in the developing world as a “women’s issue,” we will make far less progress than if we enlist both genders in the drive for full equality. I hope that this is not only a women’s issue, but also a men’s issue.
I have three strong women in my life who showed me, from a young age, the importance of education. My grandmother, mother, and older sister were all educated. They spent countless hours reading to me and then, later in my life, having me read to them. My earliest memories are of one of these strong and opinionated women teaching me to color with crayons, cheering me on as I counted to ten with Ernie and Bert, and reading me bedtime stories. I remember my mother giving me a pile of coins and teaching me how to count. My grandmother would always tell me, “If you have a book, you will never be lonely.” And my sister would tease me by speaking French, a language I did not understand, but which I vowed to study once I was old enough.*
* Anyone who has heard me attempt to speak French can attest that I failed miserably at this goal!