Excerpted from the course materials for International Women's Health and Human Rights: Stanford University Online Course
“Investing in girl’s education is the highest return on investment available in the world.” World Bank
They shot my father right in front of me. . . . It was nine- o’clock at night. They came to our house and told him they had orders to kill him because he allowed me to go to school. The Mujahideen had already stopped me from going to school, but that was not enough. Then they came and killed my father. I cannot describe what they did to me after killing my father. . . . 15-year-old girl, Afghanistan, 1994
“I liked to go to festivals at school, but I wasn’t allowed. At home they told me that girls who go just laugh and one should not be seen laughing in front of people. I liked to study and always got the highest marks. My worst trauma was when I finished primary school, and they didn’t let me continue, because I was a girl. I was prohibited from speaking to men; my brothers didn’t want to see me talk to them. One day a boy asked me the time just as my brothers happened by. They knocked me around like crazy! They had authority over me and over all my sisters. And that was that, we just had to take it.” – Rural woman from Jalisco
“Countries that achieved rapid reductions in income poverty are not necessarily making the same progress in gender equality and environmental stability. Moreover, we have not paid enough attention to the quality of education and health services in the rush to expand coverage.”UNDP Millennium Development Goal Fact Sheet, June 2010
“If you have a completion rate of about 50% of kids, of that 50% of kids -- it varies dramatically country by country -- but we're starting to see a lot of those kids, that 50% who are the lucky ones who are finishing primary school, even those kids aren't even learning to read at the most basic level. And then we can talk about what all the other issues are of what they're learning. And whether what they're learning is actually relevant to the year 2013 or 2014 or 2015, et cetera.” Lyn Murphy, Stanford University
“Akili Dada is a "leadership incubator investing in high-achieving young African women from underprivileged backgrounds who are passionate about social change. What does Akili Dada mean? Akili means intelligent, smart, brains. But not just book learning. It's an all-encompassing word that captures strategy, ability, skill. Dada means sister. And not just blood sister. But, for example, the connection that you and I have. That is inter-generational, trans-cultural, international communities of women working to make the world a better place. We are a sisterhood of women who have a vision women' leadership, and we are strategic, we are capable, and we celebrate women's smarts.” Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, Kenya, founder Akili Dada (akilidada.org)