Reading, writing, reproducing

CEducating women key to rising out
of poverty, says development honcho

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Wanda Bedard

Age: 47

Occupation: President of 60 Million Girls

Bio: Right around the turn of the new millennium, this inspired Beaconsfield broad was reading a lot of articles about the plight of Afghani women, finding herself increasingly disturbed by their situation. One morning, after reading yet another distressing news report on the condition of women in the developing world, Wanda’s eldest daughter asked her what the hell she planned to do about it. “And that was a turning point for me—reading and complaining about it wasn’t going to do any good, I needed to take action.” So she did, spending the next year researching international development organizations, coming to the belief that education for girls was the way to go, and eventually volunteering her talents to help raise 100K for UNICEF’s effort to build a school for chicks in West Africa. In 2006, she launched 60 Million Girls (60millionsdefilles.org) as a public foundation with the specific goal of empowering women in the developing world through education. She says that over 99 per cent of the monies the foundation receives goes directly to the projects they support, with the entire organization being volunteer-run and “having almost no expenses.”

A couple reasons why educating chicks in the developing world is a good idea: “All the research shows that for every additional year of schooling a young girl gets, maternal and infant mortality rates decrease by 15 per cent. Whether it’s in Africa, Asia or the Middle East, the longer you can keep a girl in school, the longer she’ll delay getting married and having children, and when she does have children, she’ll have fewer of them. Also, the children of a mother who’s been to school are more likely to go to school as well. There are so many positive effects, it really changes a community.”

As abhorrent as the treatment of women in some of these dodgy countries appears to Western eyes, who the hell are Westerners to judge the social mores and traditions of other cultures, cultures that have been surviving just fine on their own for centuries? “Well, in Afghanistan, a woman has a one in eight chance of dying while giving birth, where here it’s one in 15,000. It’s unacceptable that women should have this kind of risk, not in this day and age, whether it’s a cultural thing or whatever. There are human rights and people should be treated properly. A woman should have a say in her family, in her community. And education, well, it’s in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by every country in the world, saying women have a right to equality of education. And countries like Afghanistan will not be able to lift themselves from the cycle of poverty unless the population is educated.”

What they’re working on right now: Raising 100K to support 37 different schools in northern Afghanistan, training female teachers and enabling some 1,300 young girls to get some learnin’ into them. And raising another 100K to educate broads at the elementary level in African refugee camps.

Last book read: Le Matou, by Yves Beauchemin.

Musical preferences: Van Morrison, Elton John, Supertramp.

Words of wisdom: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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