Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women DSW 2011

For the Design A Sustainable World Project, I chose to focus upon Millennium Development Goal Number Three, which is to Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. Gender equality, and inequality, particularly in education is a vast issue in today's ever-changing society. Women deeply influence the way we learn, the way we work and the way we live.

To deny or belittle the rights of women is to deny the rights of the world.
Seven hundred, seventy six million people are illiterate, and women make up more than two-thirds of this number. Out of the primary education age, sixty percent of the 75 million children out of school are girls.
The beginning of my solution lies in two very different countries. Rwanda and Belgium both have populations of roughly ten million people, but different standards for education of women. All of the following data is according to the CIA WorldFactBook. Rwanda requires eleven years of primary education for their students, but the literacy rate of women is still 64 percent. In Belgium, they require 16 years of education and the rate for these women is 99 percent. The key point lies in the nation's economics. In Rwanda, The GDP for the entire nation is eleven billion, and per capita is one thousand one hundred. But in Belgium, the country that requires more female educational rights, their GDP is a staggering comparison of 396 billion.

There is a direct correlation between the literacy rate and educational rights of women and the GDP of any given nation. A quote from David Kennedy, the Director of International Studies at Brigham Young University says "When education is distributed unequally in a society, economic growth almost never occurs and human talent is wasted—that is, a poor country's most valuable asset remains unproductive." End quote.
When women are supported with full economic, political and educational rights, they improve their entire society.
The next question, of course, is what now? I have broken my solution into three focus points: education, equality and empowerment. Education will come from increasing legislation pertaining to the necessity of educating young women. Empowerment lies in the basis of improving women's rights, and the way women are treated in developing countries. Equality is the final aspect of my solution, and will only come once societies have changed the way they educate women, and women educate themselves.
What can you do?
Yesterday, March seventh, 2011 was the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. This incredible day is being celebrated all week, spearheaded by Secretary Hilary Clinton. Ceremonies are taking place to celebrate powerful women, and the strides society has taken to promote women's rights. When you leave from this presentation, I challenge each and every one of you to do something. Find an organization in your community that supports and promotes women's rights and learn what you can do to help. To create a more sustainable world, one must create a more sustainable people. Because "one half of the world, cannot survive without the other."
Thank you.

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