Breaking the Cycle

I was researching the topic of what are nonprofit organizations are doing to help eradicate poverty in Tanzania when I scrolled over this headline, "Is Celebrating Women the Wrong Approach?" I was instantly intrigued. My first thought was wondering what could they mean, how could that be bad? The organization, Aid for Africa, wrote this article, they claim that while the world is making efforts to close the inequality gap we cannot celebrate now, as the gap is not completely closed yet. That reminds me of the saying "Don't count your chickens before they hatch", the world has made progress but if they stop to celebrate now they will never actually complete their goal.

This validates my belief that if secondary education was more accessible to girls then there would be a decrease in poverty around the world. I think that educating women and girls would be beneficial to the countries in with a large population in poverty because with a higher education girls can get higher paying jobs, have more awareness about health risks, and can educate their families as well. With a secondary education they will have more skills and knowledge that will be applicable in life. Furthermore, the World Bank states that “Increasing the share of women with secondary education by one percentage point can boost the annual per capita income growth by 0.3 percent on average.” This proves to me how women getting a better education can get a better job, which becomes more beneficial to the family because they can gain more income. On that note, the World Bank also states that  “Every extra year of schooling beyond the average boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10-20 percent.” Hence, proving that with a better education a woman can better support herself and/or her family. Also, when women are more aware of health risks and have a higher education, they will have knowledge on how to keep children healthy. An educated woman will also be more aware of her financial stability and if having a child would be a good choice, as family planning and birth control would be part of her education. Finally, as a educated mother she will be able to teach her kids. Women are seen as the people who are supposed to care for the child. If the mother is educated she will be able to pass on her knowledge to her child. I know this from experience as well, I have probably learned more from my mom than from school for some topics.

I hope to be a catalyst for this change by going on these trips. On this service trip I am going to teach in Tanzania. I want to give hope to the students that they can do whatever they want if they follow their dreams. I feel that this trip I could give hope to the girls in school and give them a role model, Lisa Marie, as she is well educated and they can see how much she has accomplished and they know her. She always inspires me to try my best and work my hardest and I know that she has the same effect on the girls in Tanzania. That is one of the reasons I do these trips, I know that even though it is a small step I can make a change in these children’s lives. I feel that I am letting them down if I don't put all I’ve got into these teaching opportunities. In all, I can help make a change in helping more girls get a secondary education if I put my all into teaching them and try to be a role model for them as well.

I did some research to find efforts to help end poverty in Tanzania I found a successful project and an unsuccessful project. A successful project that helped to rid poverty in Tanzania is, the World Bank is starting a Conditional Cash Transfer program to help get families out of extreme poverty. This project gives families about $13 a month. This extra money helps them to get more protein in their diets and cover some of the schooling costs. Many families who apply for this cash transfer are families lead by a single mom, this extra money helps her to provide for her children. A failed attempt at helping to end poverty in Tanzania would be the company, Sun Biofuel's, attempt to create a biofuel plant in Tanzania. The company promised to give new jobs, create a better education and health system, and said that they would get clean water to the community. However, the company failed and abandoned the project. This left many villagers unemployed and their land was destroyed in the effort to produce the plantation, leaving them without a job and without land. This failed project had a detrimental impact on the village, it shows how even though the company thought that they would help they ended up making things worse. I think that while it is important to see what has succeeded and learn from the pros, it is equally important to research the mistakes and learn from those as well. The biofuel project was a bust, which was good in a way because now future projects can see how much the failed project not only affected the company but how it devastated the village as well. Hopefully they can plan so that that type of disaster will never happen again. As John Powell once said “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”