" 'Women hold up half the sky,' in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution." -NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
If you are interested in the effect of educating and empowering women on local and global communities, I've posted some great resources to dive into. Young women are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living and breaking the cycle of extreme poverty. Sseko is about these women.
Resources:
Saving the World's Women: The Women's Crusade
A great piece by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in the NYTimes about the importance and effect of empowering women around the globe.
Click this link to download a sheet with some facts about girls around the world.
Click this link to download a short, compelling video about the multiplier effect of educating and empowering youn women.
This is a great internet research portal with lots of links to other reasearch regarding women and poverty, gender equality and education.
This book, amongst others, played a uniquely influencial role in the early life of Sseko. The Blue Sweater is the inspiring personal memoir of a woman who has spent her life on a quest to understand global poverty and to find powerful new ways of tackling it. Read it.