#IDG2014

Hi guys!

Today I wanted to do a really quick post in honour of International Day of the Girl 2014 (which was yesterday as it turns out - I'd successfully managed to convince myself it was today!). There is lots going on on twitter and across social media surrounding the day, and I thought I'd just give you a quick list of what I think are some really interesting campaigns, hard-working charities and twitter accounts to go and follow if you're interested in involving yourself in the growing movement to help empower girls across the world.

Room to Read is one of my favourite charities in terms of working towards education for children, particularly girls - they build libraries, publish books in local languages and promote gender equality in a really impressive way. So far they have helped over 8million children worldwide, published over 700 children's titles and given over 27,000 girls access to and support in their ongoing education. Room to Read scores really highly in terms of transparency and accountability, which is also good to know. Follow them on twitter at @RoomtoRead.

Girls not Brides is an organisation fighting to end child marriage across the globe. Today, 15million girls worldwide are married off before they are eighteen, with many of them being forced in to marriage as young as twelve years old. Girls not Brides are currently promoting one of their member's campaigns which is...

#FaceUp from Plan UK. This campaign is fighting to end child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), and is asking people to upload a selfie and add their tag "I'm putting girls' rights where they can't be ignored" across their face, like so...

Mine isn't up on the Facebook page yet - this is a blurry screenshot, but you get the idea!

Another campaign I've been enjoying over the past couple of weeks is actually from Moroccan Oil - their #inspiredbywomen campaign is focusing on some of the amazing work being done by inspiring women worldwide to initiate change. I was particularly struck by Jessica Matthews' story. I think her idea for the Soccket is just incredible.

Having just won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Kailash Satyarthi this week, I couldn't very well write this post without including The Malala Fund. Malala Yousafzai is such a huge inspiration. At just 17, the relentless work she has done to empower young women is incredible. The website outlines the issues which are pushing their campaign - namely, that 66 million girls worldwide are out of school, every 3 seconds a girl becomes a child bride and 4 out of 5 victims of human trafficking are girls. Education can start to change these statistics.


Aaaaand last (for the moment!) we have He for She - this is quite an obvious one, but this UN campaign led by new ambassador Emma Watson is wonderful because it so openly invites men into a conversation about feminism. Bravo bravo. Check out the twitter account here!

Some other relevant twitter accounts I particularly enjoy at the moment are:

Girl Summit 2014 - @GirlSummit

Girl Rising - @girlrising

Clinton Global - @clintonglobal

Day of the Girl Summit - @IDG2014

The Geena Davis Institute - @GDIGM


And this is a video I found today through the Girls not Brides website which I thought was interesting - it deals with encouraging men in Kenya to discuss and stand up against child marriage and keep their daughters in school. The man leading the movement, Wanjala Wafula, is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb--b4l_OZ8

Thanks for reading, and happy International Day of the Girl! Hope you've all had a great weekend!