Branches Book

BRANCHES

one-year of schooling can do, not just for the girl being educated, but also for those around her. When women work, they reinvest an average of 90% of their income straight back into their families (“Employment of Young Women”). This means that in increase in wage will do things such as feeding a woman’s children, providing her family with healthcare, taking care of the sick, sending her own children to school, and much more. It is a chain reaction reaching far beyond the woman herself. It is impossible to imagine all of the ways that an increase in wage can impact a woman and her family, but it can be said with certainty that a single extra year of schooling can significantly better the life of a woman and her family. Sending a girl to school does not just help her; there are other effects of education that impact her future children and the access to medicine and healthcare that a woman receives throughout her life. First of all, access to education means that both her and her child’s chance of surviving childbirth will double. This means fewer children growing up without mothers, and fewer families losing children before they even get a chance to live in the world. Additionally, after childbirth her children’s chance of surviving to the age of five will also double. This is a huge increase in odds at that age, because children under five are often the victims of diseases and other causes of death that never allow them to reach adulthood (“Girl Education—The Facts”). Six million children die worldwide before the age of five every year, and children in Sub-Saharan Africa are 14 times more likely to pass away before five as children in developed nations (“Children: Reducing Mortality”). This is incredibly disheartening considering that much of what has to be done to save children in the future is send children to school now. It seems simple and too good to be true, but it isn’t. The long term effects of education are nothing but beneficial for everyone deeply involved the life of an educated girl. It doesn’t always take a college or even secondary education either. Simply starting a girl out in school and allowing her to finish even the most basic of elementary programs can do a great deal of good. If every girl completed primary school, child deaths would diminish by 17 percent worldwide ( Educating Girls in Africa ). With almost 11 million people under 18 dying each year, sending all girls to primary school could save up to 1,870,000 children every year. These are huge numbers for an education as basic as learning to read, write, and count. These basic building blocks of learning are all it takes to save lives. It is astounding that children everywhere don’t have the opportunity to learn these tasks that will so drastically improve both their own lives and the lives of people all around them. Finally, getting girls into school can also break the cycle of poverty and lack of education forever. Due to all of the reasons mentioned previously, such as raise in wage, the delay of having children and their increased

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