Holiday Gift Ideas: Girls' Education
Tradition, familial expectations and a year upon year, devilishly effective marketing campaign pretty much ensure that most of the people reading this will be expected and compelled to carefully select, purchase and distribute a good many gifts in the coming weeks. (Of course, to be fair you’ll receive some as well.)
So, amid the tumult of The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year™— this day that changes people; I mean it gets like Lord of the Flies out there —I ask you: why deal with all of that shit? Why not give (and request) charitable donations for the holidays?
Why not make charitable donations to organizations that work toward educating girls in developing countries?
Educating girls is an essential part of winning the fight against global poverty. On average, an educated girl boosts the income of her family and her community; has fewer, more healthy children; and is less likely to contract HIV/AIDS.
The benefits of girls’ education extend beyond the local community. Studies show that increasing the number of educated girls in a country fosters economic growth, promotes political stability and reduces health care costs. [NetAid: Educating Girls]
A quick, somewhat cursory internet search turned up the following groups that are engaged in this work. Suggestions for other organizations that should be included are welcome and will be added to the list. Pressing ‘CN’ will take you to the Charity Navigator report for the organization. Likewise, pressing ‘G.o’ will take you to the Give.org report.
- World Education (CN, G.o)
- Save The Children (CN, G.o)
- CAMFED (Reports not available.)
- Girls Global Education Fund (Reports not available.)
If you, Dear Reader, decide to contribute to educating girls this season, drop us a line in our underpopulated comment section. (Makes us feel like we’ve done something.)
Stump Lane 
missus charley, m.d. and self do something along these general lines. that is to say, we give money every year (not a LOT of money, but something) to a religiously-affiliated middle school for disadvantaged inner city youth, which we have a connection with as a consequence of having attended the sponsoring parish in the city where we formerly resided. as it happens, the pupils are boys. many of them are heterosexuals, however, and so will probably interact with girls in their future lives, and i expect that in the long run their education will benefit women too.
Excellent! I will be doing as much of this (charitable donations) again this year as possible.
If somebody reading this is shopping for me, I’d like to see money going to World Education’s Girls & Women’s Education Initiative.