iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app More

Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributors
Hot on the Blog
Chrissie HyndeBonnie TylerDr Brooke MagnantiEsther Rantzen
Cherry Healey

Presenter and writer

GET UPDATES FROM Cherry Healey
 

The First International Day of the Girl - 11 October 2012

Posted: 11/10/2012 00:00
Amazing
 Inspiring
 Funny
 Scary
 Hot
 Crazy
 Important
 Weird

International Day of the Girl. Wow. What could this mean? Do all girls get capes and spandex onesies? Do girls get to make up the rules for 24 hours? Is this a brilliant new initiative for boys to spend a whole day in a long flappy wig (that gets stuck in their lip gloss) and have to totter about in huge heels (smiling and without complaining)? No. This day has a very different and much more important agenda (although I still would like to see an International Heels Day).

The first ever International Day of the Girl, successfully lobbied for by Plan UK, will happen on Thursday 11 October. Plan UK is a charity that works with the world's poorest children so they can move themselves from a life of poverty to a future with opportunity.

The aim of this day is to raise awareness to the fact that millions of girls around the world are denied the access to education. Plan UK are also encouraging people to take a minute to sign their petition to the UN Secretary General to make girls education a priority.

I had no idea that as many as one in three girls worldwide are denied an education due to poverty, discrimination and/or violence. This is why it's so important to support Plan UK's petition to put pressure on the UN to ensure that more girls are given the means to reach their potential.

So on 11 October 2012, the first ever International Day of the Girl, please blog and tweet about the petition - the more we show our support, the more we can help Plan UK change the future of so many girls so that they can choose their own future and be a force for change.

 

Follow Cherry Healey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cherryhealey

FOLLOW UK CELEBRITY
International Day of the Girl. Wow. What could this mean? Do all girls get capes and spandex onesies? Do girls get to make up the rules for 24 hours? Is this a brilliant new initiative for boys to spe...
International Day of the Girl. Wow. What could this mean? Do all girls get capes and spandex onesies? Do girls get to make up the rules for 24 hours? Is this a brilliant new initiative for boys to spe...
Related News On Huffington Post:
 

Read more from Huffington Post bloggers:
Marcia Cross

Marcia Cross: Invest in Girls

A life without education leaves these girls even more vulnerable and with no real choices. It also limits the potential of her family, community, and country. In July, I traveled with Plan to India to witness firsthand the transformative power of education in the lives of girls and their families. I visited with mothers and children in a slum in Hyderabad and attended a Lambada tribal women's gathering in Andhra Pradesh. The women I met all said the same thing: entire families and communities are changed when girls go to school.
Cherie Blair

Cherie Blair: We Can't Afford to Ignore Half the Population

Out of a global population of some seven billion people, 50% of us are women. The world's women represent 40% of the workforce and are over 50% of the world's university students. Despite this significant contribution, women continue to face many formal and informal barriers that hinder their potential.
Cherry Healey

Cherry Healey: It's the Pits

You'd think that in 2012 we are liberated enough to discuss body hair without going red. And that actually growing a little bit wouldn't be a big issue. Wrong.
Cherry Healey

Cherry Healey: The Seduction of Magic Pills

But whilst quick fixes may solve one problem they often bring with them another... which may require yet another substance or solution to deal with that problem... and so on, and so on. Which is great news for the people selling the solutions and not so great for us.

 
 
  • Comments
  • 1
  • Pending Comments
  • 0
  • View FAQ
Comments are closed for this entry
View All
Recency  | 
Popularity
photo
DharmaSchoolBN1
2 Fans
 
03:24 PM on 10/11/2012
Here at The Dharma Primary School in Brighton (www.dharmaschool.co.uk), we’ve found International Day of the Girl to be a really useful teaching opportunity. Our Year 6 pupils have undertaken a ‘role reversal’ project exploring what it might feel like to swap typical gender roles – in classic children’s stories, Disney films and historical contexts through to playground games, hobbies and career choice and pupils throughout the school have been learning about successful women in society and about the lives of girls from other countries and cultures and how they can help them thrive.
We’re Britain’s only Buddhist-inspired primary school (co-ed, ages 4-11) and our approach is to nurture pupils through an ethos of mindfulness and self-reflection. Research shows that cognitive and ‘coping’ mechanisms learnt around the age of seven are crucial in determining how we will function as adults. Self-awareness and understanding developed through mindfulness practice can help buffer girls against low self-esteem and the bombardment of cultural messages they receive about body image, beauty and what it ‘means’ to be a girl.

Well done Plan UK for designating this day in support of girls worldwide and for petitioning the UN to ensure that more girls are given the means to reach their potential.
Permalink  |