Investing in Girls - Why Supporting Girls in Africa Makes Sense

Many charitable institutions offer ways to donate money to individuals living in poverty in Africa, and DevelopAfrica is no exception.  This organization offers many ways in which you can donate, volunteer, and fundraise for causes that help people living in Africa in need.  If you have donated before, maybe you have wondered how much of a difference you are making.  In the case of women and girls in Africa, the answer could be that your help has the potential to make a significant impact, not just on one girl, but on a whole community.

The Cycle of Poverty

Despite ongoing stabilization efforts throughout Africa, most of the countries are trapped in a cycle of poverty.  It is not surprising that the majority of women in Africa are trapped in this same cycle.  It is difficult for a government in flux to provide adequate care for its citizens, and women seem to take on most of the burden.  Since in almost all cases the woman is the center of the family, the primary caregiver for children and extended family alike, it falls on the woman’s shoulders to learn how to survive in poverty.  This is difficult to do without adequate resources.

Often, when a child is raised in poverty, there is limited access to education, medical resources, and job opportunities, and so the poverty continues into that child's adult life.  This is true for both boys and girls.  However, often times, what little access there is to education and job opportunities is meted out unfairly to boys.  Girls living in poverty in Africa are the first ones to be kept out of school to help out in the home, the first to be married at young age, and of course, the first to become pregnant.  Furthermore, as pointed out in the International Center for Research on Women's Common Interests Common Action:

Those women who are employed are concentrated in a relatively small number of jobs, which tend to be low-paying with little opportunity for advancement and may be located in unsafe or unhealthy working conditions...In many countries, women's work outside the home is forbidden or looked down upon because of strong cultural beliefs that a woman's proper role is limited to the home.

When a girl in Africa is born into poverty, she not only faces economic hardship, she must also deal with limited access to education, job opportunities, and inadequate medical care and reproductive health support.  She is unable to escape her situation, but more importantly, the cycle of poverty is perpetuated when she has children of her own and is unable to provide them with opportunities to succeed.  

Why Support Girls in Africa?

The United Nations Population Fund puts the benefits of supporting girls’ health and education concisely by saying that such support “means that women stay healthier and are more productive. They have more opportunities for education, training and employment, which in turn benefits their families, their communities and ultimately their nations.”  By supporting women and girls in Africa, you have the opportunity to improve not just one girl’s life, but potentially the life of her family, community and ultimately, her country.  

Studies have also shown that, since women are most often the primary caregivers of the family, the money they make and the resources they have are reinvested in their children on a larger scale than those of the men in the family.  That does not mean that the men in Africa do not care about their families, but there is a stronger correlation between the benefits girls in Africa derive from education and health care and the improvement of the lives the girls and their families.

What Women Mean to the African Economy

The plight of girls in Africa is one that should be important to the international community, not only because of the humanitarian implications, but because studies show that improving the lives of women in Africa has the potential to improve economic conditions on a worldwide scale.  Studies like Campbell-White A, et al.’s “Reproductive Health: The Missing Millennium Development Goal” show that women in some countries in Africa actually contribute more to the gross national product than men, despite the adversity they face from the day they are born.  

When girls' lives are made better through better funding, awareness and education, the entire community benefits and eventually, the benefits will spread outward to the city, the country, and the entire world.  It is akin to the theme in the proverb "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime."  Sociologists and economists have come to realize that throwing money and food in the general direction of poverty is not helping.  But, empowering what is clearly the center of the family and societal unit - the mother/woman - is they key to stopping, or at least abating, poverty before it has a disastrous effect.  

Support a girl in Africa and make a difference that ripples out into the community.  Because DevelopAfrica makes supporting women one of its primary goals, explore the site and learn about the ways you can support girls in Africa, whether it be through sponsoring a child, donating funds, or even putting your own fundraiser together with a group of friends.  And remember, you never know who might be interested in helping - make sure to talk to friends, family and even the company you work for to see who might be interested in joining in a partnership with Develop Africa and supporting women and girls to give them a better chance.

Written by Kelly Fox

Sources:

www.developafrica.org

www.icrw.org