11th October The International Day of the Girl

The International Day of the Girl (IDG) – observed annually on 11 October – is a global platform to advocate for the full spectrum of girls’ rights. This year, at a time when we are seeing a range of movements and actions to curtail girls’ and women’s rights and roll back progress on gender equality, we see particularly harsh impacts on girls.

Meet some girls who are transforming their worlds here.

SDG 4 Gender equality is still in need of advocacy because 122 million girls are still out of school.

To read about girls and education see this list of books. Start with this one: 

• The International Day of the Girl Child by Jessica Dee, Rona Ambrose and Simone Shin

Nine stories inspired by the real-life experiences of girls from all over the globe bring to light the importance of this day. Each story is set in a different country and sensitively describes an inequity faced by a character and how she addressed it. The challenges include gender-based violence, illiteracy, lack of access to technology, sanitation, nutritional disparity and child marriage.

I am off to the State Library tonight to watch Room to Read's film She Creates Change 

"To achieve gender equality in education across the globe, we must sustain our efforts, equipping girls with tools and fostering environments conducive to their success." - Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO