“Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.

— Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, and founder of the Central Asia Institute

Girl Up - a vital campaign of the United Nations Foundation, reaches out to American girls to raise awareness and funds to help many of the world’s most vulnerable adolescent girls.

When the campaign launches in June, 2010, it will be easy to give these girls a “High Five” by making the nominal donation of $5.

Kimberly Perry, Director of Girl Up, provides an inside perspective:

As the new Director for the UN Foundation’s Girl Up campaign, I am so excited to join forces with women and girls around the U.S. to make a difference in the lives of adolescent girls in developing countries. We began this campaign because the cause is absolutely urgent. However, the campaign is only a success because of the energy and compassion that we discovered here at home.

The catalyst for developing the Girl Up campaign was, and remains, the fact that adolescent girls in the developing world are in trouble. Girls living developing countries between the ages of 10 and 19 face myriad disadvantages in almost all areas – health, education, nutrition, labor force participation and the burden of household tasks. Lacking a full range of economic opportunities and devalued because of gender bias, many girls are seen as unworthy of investment or protection by their families. Because of deprivation and discriminatory cultural norms, many poor girls are also extraordinarily vulnerable to HIV, violence and physical exploitation.

However, despite these clear disadvantages, adolescent girls in the developing world remain an invisible population. Who is there to protect adolescent girls in that precarious middle ground between childhood and adulthood? This is a critical time in the life of a girl.

This is where Girl Up comes in. As we began to shape the campaign, we wanted to know what American girls thought about their counterparts in the developing world.

• Would they be interested in getting involved?
• Would their hearts and mind reach girls beyond their borders?

To find the answer, we sent teams to poll hundreds of teens and parents across the U.S. What we found continues to impress me:

For one: girls give.

-79% of the girls we polled have donated food clothing or other household items and 53% have donated their own money.

Second: girls engage.

-76% have volunteered their time and 66% have raised money for a fundraiser.

Third: girls talk.

-66% have asked family members or friends to give money or volunteer and 51% have talked with others about a cause they care about.

As I mentioned before, we began this campaign for the millions of adolescent girls in the developing world who need our help. However, the campaign is only possible because of the girls and parents around this country who have demonstrated their support. Adolescent girls, and our entire world, will be better off because of them.

Please take a minute to watch a short video on Girl Up. To get involved in Girl Up’s mission to ensure that girls become educated, healthy, safe, counted and positioned to be the next generation of leaders, visit www.GirlUp.org.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Perry

Director, Girl Up

[Photos by David Evans, Nov 2009]