SYLLABUS

EDUCATING GIRLS

INSPIRED BY

United Nations International Day of the Girl Child: 11 October and Girl Rising

A Seven-Week, Self-Paced Course (in partnership with Canvas)

CONTACT INFORMATION
DR. FRED MEDNCK
Founder, Teachers Without Borders
Professor, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
fred@twb.org |+1 206-356-4731
 HOW TO ENROLL
Get a free Canvas account
Once you do, ENROLL!

EDUCATING GIRLS | TABLE OF CONTENTS

Educating Girls | Introduction and Course Description ....................................................................................3

Four Course Themes .........................................................................................................................................................4
Reading List ..........................................................................................................................................................................4
Course Navigation and Technology ...........................................................................................................................4
Course Policies and Community Obligations .........................................................................................................5
Grading Criteria (for institutions granting credit only) ......................................................................................5
This is the Beginning | Access to Education (Part 1).......................................................................................6
What if a Girls Life Could be More? | Access to Education (Part I) ........................................................9
I Will Come Back Every Day | Girls Education in Emergencies (Part 1) ............................................ 11
Between Bulls and Mosquitoes | Education in Emergencies (Part I1) .................................................. 15
Do You See It Now? I am Change | Girls Education & Public Health (Part 1) ............................... 16
He was Strong, but I was Stronger | Girls Education and Public Health (Part 1I) ....................... 20
Education and Empowerment ................................................................................................................................... 21
Appendix: Girls Education and Public Health: My Community Template Presentation............ 25

EDUCATING GIRLS | A self-paced course offered free by Teachers Without Borders 2

 Educating Girls | Introduction and Course Description
Before we begin this course, I wish to
encourage you to see the film, Girl
Rising, an extraordinary film about the
indisputable impact of educating girls.
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum
produced by the Pearson Foundation

This course honors that film as partial

source material for coursework designed
to enhance awareness, for teachers,
about the pressing issues facing girls
education today.
According to major research studies, educated girls are 50% more likely to immunize their
children in the future. With an extra year of education, a girl can earn up to 20% more as an
adult. A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of 5.1
In order for girls education to gain momentum, the power of educating girl requires a catalyst
teachers: the largest professionally trained group in the world. If educating girls is critical to
development, then supporting teachers is the multiplying factor of change.
While the education of girls propels all development efforts, no single solution works.
Immunizing children, installing water filtration systems, and distributing mosquito nets have had
remarkable results; more children survive and more attend school. However, public health often
hinges on hygiene education campaigns, community participation, investment, ongoing support,
and measurement. It takes a world to educate a girl and her teachers.
Educating Girls revolves around four themes: access, public health,
Community emergencies, and empowerment by examining sectors and
stakeholders, teaching and learning, top-down policy and bottom-
up movements.
Well only touch the surface. It is said that the humanities teach a
Students Teachers
little about a lot and the sciences teach a lot about a little. Perhaps.
It will be up to the student to go deep or wide, local or global. One
fact is certain: this course is a call to action.

Online courses dont have the intimate feeling that can come from
gathering face-to-face, but they can be far more inclusive. "Educating Girls

1Center for Global Development, 10x10act.org, UNICEF, Girls Education International, Fem 2.0, Girl
Effect.

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encourages both the intimacy of colleagues who gather around issues that matter and the
inclusion of new friends making a difference. You may not be able to eat together or shake each
other's hand, but youll feel close to people you may not ever physically meet and who live in
regions of the world you may never visit.

Informed learning + Teacher Multipliers Time = Educated Girls. Its a complicated equation, but
think of it this waywe dont have a moment to lose. Lets do the math and science. Lets teach
each other. And, better yet, lets teach it to girls.

Four Course Themes

This course explores four major THEMES in the education of

girls:

ACCESS to EDUCATION: enrollment, retention, school fees,

school uniforms, public policy
EDUCATION in EMERGENCIES preparedness and
planning; intervention for acute or chronic crises;
reconstruction
EDUCATION and PUBLIC HEALTH: hygiene, public safety, water, policy
EDUCATION and EMPOWERMENT: human rights, participation, freedom

The themes rest on three Rs: (a) Research: the data around the education of girls, as well as
analyses, images, and stories (b) Relationship: how new learning relates to our practice, and how
new relationships make impacts possible (c) Results: the capacity to make a measurable difference
in and for our classrooms, our communities, and the world.
We shall be adding more themes each time the course is taught. In future versions of this course,
all themes will serve as independent modules enabling students to take one or more, depending
upon their calendars and interests.

Reading List
All readings are available online and at no cost. The complete reading list is included in this
syllabus week-by-week, and all articles are also available on SCRIBD, an online repository. Click
on the link to see the list of articles. Well also provide a place for your bookmarks and research
so that the course gets better the more people take it.

Course Navigation and Technology

In addition to the CANVAS course platform, where youll see the course assignments and the
Grade Book, there are other technological suggestions

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TWITTER is recommended.
PLEASE add @teachersnetwork for a reference to our Twitter handle and
#TWB-GirlsEd to refer to the course

Knowledge of social networks (like Facebook), Google Docs, and applications like wikis is a plus.
Well also introduce you to online applications like mapping and timelines. Technology is
powerful. Please post to the blog because your work is yours. Too much in the world is at stake to
let your scholarship evaporate. Well provide tutorials and help with technology issues.

Course Policies and Community Obligations

It is each students responsibility to become familiar with Johns Hopkins Universitys School of
Education policies, as well as those of this particular course. JHU Policies can be found in Appendix
1: JHU-SOE Policies.

PLAGIARISM:
Apologies for stating the obvious, but plagiarism (copying and pasting the work of others
without appropriate attribution or credit to the author) is theft, plain and simple, and we must
acknowledge the importance of both sharing our work and acknowledging the work of others.
The Internet is a social contract designed for learning as sharing. If you find the perfect article to
address an issue you wish to explore for an assignment, go ahead and post it, but you must cite
it and give credit to the author its only a means, not an end; use it to reinforce your point, not
in place of your point.
Chasing after students in order to determine if an essay has been plagiarized is a waste of time
and humiliating; its not teaching its policing. Thats another reason why your blog posts
should be public. If you copy and paste the work of others without proper attribution, someone
will notice. Your reputation, even your job, could be at stake. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis famously observed, sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Reputation
should be your biggest motivator.
FOR ACADEMIC COMMUNITIES USING THIS COURSE: CITATION FORMAT:
Though we wont take points off for the citation format you use, the preferred citation style for
this course is the APA Format. Here is a Quick Guide to APA Format to guide you along.

Grading Criteria (for institutions granting credit only)

This is non-credit course professional development course, available for Continuing Education
Units (CEUs) by universities worldwide and shall be subject to that institutions grading criteria.
SUGGESTIONS: Grading based upon participation (discussion) assignments.
Were going to be using a point system. Youll get feedback on discussions and assignments.
Please know that your work will NOT be judged based upon the style or grammar of your

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writing, especially because a significant number of colleagues will not be writing in your first
language. That would not be fair. Students submissions for assignments shall be evaluated
based upon the following criteria:
[6]: EXEMPLARY: Clear incorporation of research, an extra effort to learn more, proper
acknowledgment of material other than your own, creativity, and clarity. All of this would be
worthy of sharing to educators around the world and makes a contribution to our knowledge of
teaching and learning. Mentor quality.
[4-5]: MEETS REQUIREMENTS: Satisfies the expectations of the assignment with professional
use of sources. Demonstrates core competency.
[3]: NEEDS WORK: Basic treatment of the ideas, but needs to dig deeper in order to show core
competence.
[0-2]: NO CREDIT: (a) Student uses others ideas as her/his own without attribution, and/or (b)
does not address or respect the assignment.
Should there be any issue about making deadlines, you will need to contact me in advance.

This is the Beginning | Access to Education (Part 1)

MODULE 1
KEY THEMES: Introduction to the Issues | Numbers and the Stories | Challenges and
Opportunities

CHECKLIST
Preparation and Introduction: the syllabus, survey and your profile
Readings, and Media
Assignments and Activities
Questions, Conversations and Connections
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

This is not the end. It is the beginning. (Sokha Cambodia, Girl Rising)
The film, Girl Rising, opens with Sokha, a Cambodian girl in a golden costume, dancing in slow
motion. Suddenly, the camera shifts to the broader context Sokhas previous life picking trash.
This week well focus on the statistics and stories of girls around the world. Well use publicly
available clips from YouTube, featuring Girl Rising, to provide dramatic testimony and support
for research on the connection between educating girls and affecting social change.

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Families, worldwide, prefer to send their girls to school, yet accessibility, availability, affordability,
and acceptability of schooling is bound up with economic, cultural, political, and historical
complexities. For example, the positive impacts of eliminating school and uniform fees can be
contrasted with unintended negative consequences like corruption, the need for teachers to seek
additional sources of income (tutoring), and lack of follow-through. No easy solutions.
Well start with getting to know each other, getting organized, and diving into the facts of girls
education today.

PREPARATION AND INTRODUCTIONS

Please complete a short survey on your background and interests
Please respond to the email invitation to join www.girlsneedtoknow.org (more soon)
Please fill out your profile on the www.girlsneedtoknow.org site. Youll get an invite

MEDIA, READINGS, and WEBSITES TO REVIEW

Sokhas Story (YouTube video from Girl Rising)
Because I am a Girl: (UN International Day of the Girl)
Slide show on girls' education (infographic)
Gender Equality Quality and Statistics (data-base)
Women as a Force for Change (Kristof, New York Times)

QUESTIONS, CONVERSATION AND CONNECTION

For 15 years, Ive been asking the same question of teachers, worldwide: What do you see
outside your window? How has your view through your window shaped your perspective on
education? Its quite open ended. Many have described pastoral scenes, brick walls, bars, a
lack of a window, rain. In 2000, their answers were so compelling that I dropped everything and
founded Teachers Without Borders. This year, I wrote the following piece for a book I am titling,
Outside My Window: Teachers Defying the Odds.
The first part of the question is the same: What do you see outside your window?
The second part is different: If you were working exclusively on the issue of girls
education, what, then, would you likely be seeing outside your window? The same
view? A different neighborhood? A different country? A more tragic or hopeful scene?
Would you leave your job? Would it be another state/province or in another country?
Most importantly, why?

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Please post your response to the course blog and respond to at least two other colleagues. NOTE:
I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to add video or photographs. If you worry about privacy or, in
fact, if you worry about authorities who might judge (or punish) you not only for this assignment,
but also for taking this course, then please let me know and well post it in a space accessible only
to your fellow students.

ACTIVITIES AND WRITING

No additional writing or activities (other than filling out your profile, completing the survey,
posting your response to the discussion (Outside My Window), responding to others, and doing
the reading.

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 What if a Girls Life Could be More? | Access to Education (Part I)
MODULE 2

KEY THEMES: Overcoming Barriers | The Data of Development and Girls Education | The
U.N. Millennium Development Goals: Progress and Challenges

CHECKLIST
Background/Overview, Readings, and Media
Questions, Conversations and Connections
Writing and Activities
Please see the "Girl Rising Curriculum," produced by the Pearson Foundation

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

What if a girls life could be more? (Azmera Ethiopia, in Girl Rising)
Make no mistake about it Azmeras story is not limited to Ethiopia. Depending on how you
interpret the research, we could be making progress, worldwide, or going backward. You
decide.
According to the United Nations, the 8 Millennium Development Goals form a blueprint
agreed to by all the worlds countries and all the worlds leading development institutions. They
have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the worlds poorest. Access to
high-quality education is widely recognized as a universal human right. MDGs focus on
national self-reliance, sound policy, sustainability, educational access, and global transparency.
Girls education is woven throughout explicitly and implicitly.

MEDIA, READINGS, AND WEBSITES TO REVIEW

Azmeras story: Maaza Mengiste, Meet the Writer from Ethiopia from Girl Rising
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Post 2015 Agenda (websites)
MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women: UNICEF
Educators Guide to the MDGs: Taking It Global
UN Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI) Global Advisory Committee (video)
World Bank eAtlas of Gender: (sortable database)
UNICEF Girls Education Campaigns

QUESTIONS, CONVERSATION, AND CONNECTIONS

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Do the Millennium Development Goals have any bearing on your local work with girls and
women? How might these goals affect your work? Please post your discussion topic and
respond to at least 2 colleagues.

WRITING AND ACTIVITIES

Choose ONE of the following (2 pages, maximum)
How might the Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG 3, affect your work?
Look at the details and research behind the slogans. Be specific and cite research on the
MDGs, as well as research. If so, how?
Review Teach UNICEF Lesson Plans and Units: Millennium Development Goals, along
with Young People Tackle the MDGs. How would you integrate this into your
classroom? What would you change? What would you keep the same?

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I Will Come Back Every Day | Girls Education in Emergencies
(Part 1)
MODULE 3

KEY THEMES: Introduction to the scope of education in emergencies | Interagency

Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) | INEE Toolkit
CHECKLIST
Background/Overview, Readings, and Media
Questions, Conversations and Connections
Possible Guest Speaker(s)
Group Collaboration
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation

BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION

I will come back every day until I can stay. (Wadley Haiti, in Girl Rising).
In Haiti, Wadley started January 12th, 2010 innocently enough getting ready to go to her school
nearby and playing with flowers in bloom. In the afternoon, a 7.0 earthquake, the largest of its
kind in 2000 years, devastated the country, leaving 230,000 dead, countless homeless, and
schools destroyed. Resilient and steadfast, Wadley insisted that she attend a makeshift school,
despite her lack of money to pay for her uniforms.
Wadleys story is wrapped up in a larger picture of education in access to schooling. Imagine the
resilience it takes to maintain or attend school in or after a disaster. Today, over 2.5 years after
the earthquake, the streets of Port-au-Prince are littered with enough rubble to pave a four-lane
highway from the capitol city to Los Angeles. Poorly designed buildings, a dense population, a
shallow earthquake zone, poverty, and little or no earthquake education made it so cataclysmic.
It continues to be a natural, a national, and an international disaster.
Access to education makes front-page news. In Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, the 16 year-old
Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for her efforts to attend school, has become a household name.
In Afghanistan, a generation of children knows only war. A recent New York Times article,
Despite Education Advances, A Host of Education Woes (July 21, 2013) describes the world
outside Afghanistans windows the culture and context of schooling, the good news and bad
news of education and development, gender equity and education emergencies: prevention and
planning, intervention and reconstruction.
Institutions, worldwide, must cope with new intra- or international thugs, human trafficking,
dwindling resources, youth-targeted paramilitary recruitment campaigns, war, and a capricious

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susceptibility to the ravages of climate change. Fragile states cannot maintain their schools and
protect education. The refugee population, worldwide, is growing alongside a youth bulge.
Teachers, students, and schools are often unable to establish normalcy, no less move forward.
It is a daunting undertaking. What are the standards and protocols? Amidst the human
development nightmare of feeding and educating one million displaced Syrians in Jordan, what
happens to educational systems as a whole, and the education of girls in particular? What are the
issues to consider when emergencies strike? Why build schools if children and teachers will be
attacked? In the face of powerful evidence about the return on investment in disaster prevention
and planning, how can it be that only 2% is spent on emergency education, including aid after a
disaster?
Yet amidst tragedy, there are heroes, and one network needs special mention: The Interagency
Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), responsible for establishing the standards that
govern coordination support for prevention, planning, and global aid. Today, when an
emergency breaks out, INEE has made it mandatory for educators to be part of first-responder
teams. This week, well focus almost exclusively on INEEs work.
And, of course, there are the unseen heroes teachers. Youll meet them in the article, Education
Under Attack. The largest professionally-trained group in the world and a true development
army, teachers know who is sick or missing or orphaned by AIDS. They count the children in
emergencies, create child-friendly spaces, and provide desperately needed psychosocial support
for families.
An innocent girl, Wadley, wants to go school. In her way is earthquake debris, corruption, the
cost of a uniform, a lack of transparency, neglect, and a lack of an education about the science
of earthquakes and the lives that could be saved, if only there were a plan.
This issue is not for the faint of heart. In your discussions and interactions with organizations,
please understand the feelings of those who may have experienced this first hand.
For those of you who wish to explore this issue in greater detail, we are also offering a course,
ASAP: Education in Emergencies.

READINGS AND MEDIA

Wadleys Story: (Meet the Writer from Haiti, Edwidge Danticat) from Girl Rising
Schools as Battlegrounds: Human Rights Watch (video)
Despite Education Advances, A Host of Education Woes (New York Times)
International Day of Disaster Reduction: (October 12th) Step Up Women & Girls: the
invisible Force of Resilience
Education Under Attack: UNESCO
Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE website)

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 INEE Pocket Guide to Gender: (document)

QUESTIONS, CONVERSATIONS, AND CONNECTIONS

As you go through the readings and Group Collaboration assignment (described below), make
your thoughts, questions, concerns, and breakthroughs known. Inside your groups, you also have
the ability to discuss group-specific progress and issues.

WRITING/ACTIVITY: Funding Change extended deadline

Google Presentation
Alone or in a group you form, the task is to take the perspective of a donor providing funds OR
as an organization seeking funds for girls education in Haiti focusing on one of the four themes:
(1) access to education (b) education in emergencies (c) public health (d) empowerment.
Clearly theyre related, but try to focus on one of these areas. Both choices are similar, but they
vary in terms of the perspective the giver and the receiver. CHOOSE ONE of the following:
CHOICE 1 (Funders Perspective): You have $50,000. You cant start an organization or initiative.
You can only support an organization or network already operating in, or for, Haiti. Funds can
be used for (a) organizational capacity or (b) a particular project. Be prepared to explain your
rationale.
Read this New York Times article: How Charities Used Donations for Haiti
Choose three criteria for selecting the organization for its work on girls education. You
dont have to prioritize them. Some examples: Is it the organizations track record? Its
follow through on equitable policies? Its focus on local leadership? Its transparency? Its
impacts and clear reporting? Its judicious use of funds? Its ability to scale and sustain
itself? Its partnerships?
Youll have a template for creating a slide show using Google Presentation. This will
allow you to collaborate if you want to work as a group AND make it possible for the
public to see your work in real time. The template for your group presentation can be
found here. Theres a place for notes (like in Powerpoint). Feel free to customize it.
CHOICE 1I (Organization or NGO Perspective): You represent an organization working in Haiti
and need $50,000. Youve been in operation for at least three years. You need to demonstrate
the three most important criteria for being selected. Your policies? Transparency? Proven track
record? Sustainability? Capacity for scale? Community support? Your ability to demonstrate
self-reliance? A breakthrough on a consistent barrier that others have not managed to
accomplish? Your capacity to collaborate and pool resources with other civil society
organizations?
Read this New York Times article: How Charities Used Donations for Haiti
Acknowledging that there is donor-fatigue and suspicion out there, youll need to
demonstrate your credibility by focusing on those three criteria

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 Your group also has to scan the field to determine what other organizations are doing
similar work and how your organization fills a particular niche or is known for its ability
to collaborate
Youll have a template for creating a slide show using Google Presentation. This will
allow you to collaborate if you want to work as a group AND make it possible for the
public to see your work in real time. The template for your group presentation can be
found here. Theres a place for notes (like in Powerpoint). Feel free to customize it.

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Between Bulls and Mosquitoes | Education in Emergencies (Part
I1)
MODULE 4

KEY THEMES: Connecting one emergency education issue with global development |
Group collaboration as social change agent

CHECKLIST
Background/Overview, Readings, and Media
Questions, Conversations and Connections
Group Collaboration Continues
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

Some communities in Tajikistan believe that earthquakes are caused by a bull, living beneath the
earth, who when bothered by a mosquito cause the earth to rumble. We start from there.
- Solmaz Mohadjer, Director of Emergency Education for Teachers Without Borders

Think about Wadleys community for a moment. At the first sign of any civil unrest or natural
disaster, many people run indoors for protection. Unfortunately, schools are attacked or collapse
in an earthquake. Soon, families become building phobic. If they were uncertain about sending
their children to school before the quake, theyre convinced now the school will kill my child or
take her away.
We are focusing on earthquakes because they crystallize the issues of education in emergencies:
policy, preparation, and programs and tie together issues of access, emergencies, and public
health. The 20-minute video, Between Bulls and Mosquitoes, focuses on Teachers Without
Borders earthquake science and safety program as one of many efforts to engage a global
community (teachers, government leaders, scientists) in efforts to connect education and disaster
reduction.
New research on girls and women in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has revealed a shift from
reactive disaster response to long-term proactive disaster risk and vulnerability reduction
(Making Disaster Risk Reduction Gender-Sensitive, pg. 2), along with a need for a gender-focused,
rather than women-focused, approach designed to strengthen sustainable development.
Disasters do not discriminate. Women hold up half the sky; men hold up the other.

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READINGS AND MEDIA

Between Bulls and Mosquitoes: Teachers Without Borders (earthquake science and
safety)
Parsquake: Earthquake Education in the Global Persian Community
Making Disaster Risk Reduction Gender-Sensitive: United Nations International Strategy
for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)
Toward a new post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (Recommended)

GUEST SPEAKERS/WEBINARS
Depending upon scheduling of speakers listed in Part I, we may extend or reschedule webinars.
Stay tuned.

QUESTIONS, CONVERSATIONS, AND CONNECTION

Please post your immediate reactions on the Discussion space and comment on two other
colleagues posts. You might want to look at the issue of culture (Bulls and Mosquitoes),
education initiatives (Parsquake) or policy (UNISDR report and post-2-15 agenda).

WRITING/ACTIVIITES continues from the previous week

There is no writing assignment this week in order to give you time to focus on your Funding
Change assignment.

Do You See It Now? I am Change | Girls Education & Public

Health
(Part 1)
MODULE 5

KEY THEMES: The Data of Development and Girls Education | The U.N. Millennium
Development Goals: Progress and Challenges
CHECKLIST
Background/Overview
Readings and Media
Discussion Post
Writing and Activities
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation

EDUCATING GIRLS | A self-paced course offered free by Teachers Without Borders 16

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW
Look into my eyes. Do you see it now? I am change. (Amina Afghanistan in Girl Rising).
Public health is the science and art of protecting and improving the health of communities
through education, promotion of healthy lifestyles, and research for disease and injury
prevention. Public health works to prevent health problems before they occur.2
The lack of education is, inherently, a public health issue. The Indian schoolchildren who died
from eating tainted school lunches were not the victims of poisoning, per se, but from poverty.
Resilience alone cannot feed children or protect them from the ravages of neglect, sexual
violence, and civil unrest. Accurate, practical, and engaging education in formal and non-formal
settings, combined with teacher professional development, psychosocial services, and effective
and enforceable policies, can make a difference.
This week we will explore a story from Afghanistan, child marriage, girls health, and gender-
based violence.

READINGS AND MEDIA

Meet the Writer from Afghanistan: (Zarghuna Kargar: Aminas Story Girl Rising)
Ending Child Marriage Via Education: (Care video)
Standing Up to Early Marriage: Melka (video from 10x10)
Girls Health and Education: Igniting Change Worldwide (1-hour video recommended)
Sheryl WuDunn: Our Century's Greatest Injustice: (TED video from author of Half the
Sky)

DISCUSSION
Post your reaction to the readings with a question, starting with: My Question: XXXX. An
example: My Question: Why is so little spent on preventative public health education in the
development world? Please refer to the readings when explaining why you have asked this
question. Please limit your response to paragraph, plus responses to two colleagues posts.

WEBINAR (to be determined by groups using this course)

WRITING AND ACTIVITIES

Were going to look at public health assets, as well as liabilities, in a community we choose. (3
pages, maximum). Heres how this will work:
Consider your community in light of public health, education, and girls.

2
What is Public Health? http://www.whatispublichealth.org

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 Choose one public health issue that means something to you. Describe the problem. Cite
research from articles, databases, and articles in local publications
Draw a circle 50 miles or kilometers around your community in order to discover what
public health education ASSETS (people, programs, and projects) are directly accessible
to your community (particularly girls) around this issue.

EXAMPLE: Port Harcourt, Nigeria | HIV-AIDS infections of youth (ages 14-23) within
50 kilometers | Assets: mobile vans that demonstrate condom use; health workers
dispatched from the local hospital; school training in both the science of HIV-AIDS and
relationships between men and women.

What are your communitys assets to address this public health issue and education
issue, particularly for girls?

NOTES:
Copy the template (Appendix II) to help you along
Give yourself a time limit for researching this because it can feel like a never-ending
experience

FOR THE CURIOUS FREE TECHNOLOGY FOR EMERGENCY EDUCATION

CDC Widgets & Gadgets - The Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) now
provides a wide range of free public domain software widgets & gadgets for use on your
computer systems or web sites focused on public health & safety
FrontlineSMS - An award-winning free and open source software product that can turn a
laptop or mobile phone into a central communications hub. Proven to be very useful in
emergency management or humanitarian crisis situations.
Global Disaster Information Network (GDIN) - An international organization focused on
providing reliable information about disasters, both manmade and natural. They also
provide information to disaster response and relief organizations on ways of helping the
survivors of different disasters, as well as guidance on preventing or responding to future
disasters.
InSTEDD - Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters (InSTEDD) is a
non-profit collaborative organization focused on the design and use of open source
technology tools to help partners enhance collaboration and improve information flow to
better deliver critical services to vulnerable populations during man-made crises or
natural disasters.
Open ISES - This software development project and associated community are dedicated
to creating free & open source software, tools and instructional materials for the
Emergency Services Community, Civilian Emergency Response Teams, and others

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 Sahana Foundation Projects - A free and open source Disaster Management system
addressing the common coordination problems during a disaster from finding missing
people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between
government agencies, non-government organizations (NGO), and the victims themselves
Ushahidi and Crowdmap - A non-profit tech organization & project specializing in
developing free & open source software for information collection, visualization and
interactive mapping data related to man-made crises and natural disasters.

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He was Strong, but I was Stronger | Girls Education and Public
Health
(Part 1I)
MODULE 6

KEY THEMES: Data on Gender Equality | Gender Violence

CHECKLIST
Background/Overview, Readings, and Media
Conversations and Connections
Writing and Activities
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

He was strong, but I was stronger. (Yasmin Egypt, in Girl Rising)

Writer Mona Eltahway addresses issues of gender-based violence for the story of Yasmin, an
Egyptian girl in the film Girl Rising. This tragedy, however, knows no borders. It reflects
several themes we have addressed to date access to education, education in emergencies, and
education and public health. We will examine the implications of Yasmins story.

READINGS AND MEDIA

Yasmins Story: Meet the Writer from Egypt: Mona Eltahawy
Screening Tool to Identify Female Survivors of Gender-Based Violence: (article)
Why Tackling Violence Will Unleash the Potential of Millions of Girls (Girl Effect
infographic)
Gender Equality Must be a Development Priority in Its Own Right: The Guardian
World Bank Education Statistics and www.GapMinder.org (data tables)

CONVERSATION AND CONNECTION

Post topics that reflect the patterns you recognize from the data (see readings). Please respond to
at least four other colleagues.

WRITING AND ACTIVITIES

EDUCATING GIRLS | A self-paced course offered free by Teachers Without Borders 20

The reading/data analysis is dense this week. Focus on the conversation and connection. There
are no other additional writing assignments this week.

Education and Empowerment

MODULE 7
KEY THEMES: The data of girls education and gender equality | Inspiring action | Models
of change

DUE DATES and CHECKLIST

Background/Overview, Readings, and Media
Conversations and Connections: Join BRAC or GRAMEEN
Writing and Activities
Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

Thats when I learned to never give up. (Ruksana India, in Girl Rising).
RUKSANAs story involves access to education (India has the largest number of children out of
school), but it does not end there. It certainly intersects with public health (the disasters that can
befall the homeless in megacities), but here too safer streets do not an education make. Nor
her story about disaster mitigation, though dense populations in megacities are particularly
vulnerable. Its about the connection between poverty and human rights, economic
development and dignity, education and empowerment. Here, two organizations shine:
The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is spreading solutions born in
Bangladesh to 10 other countries around the world a global leader in creating opportunity for
the worlds poor. What started out as a limited relief operation in 1972 in a remote village of
Bangladesh has turned into the largest development organization in the world. (BRAC website)
The Grameen Foundation helps the worlds poorest, especially women, improve their lives and
escape poverty by helping to provide access to appropriate financial services (such as small loans
and savings accounts), new ways to generate income, and important information about their
health, crops and finances. (Grameen website).

Now theres nothing to stop me. Nothing in the world. Nothing in the universe.
(Mariama Sierra Leone, Girl Rising)

EDUCATING GIRLS | A self-paced course offered free by Teachers Without Borders 21

MARIAMA is a modern young woman, comfortable with technology and herself, but she lives
within a context that, initially, thwarts her ambitions to be of service to others. She perseveres,
nonetheless because of mentors. Mentors and networks are the key to social change, and so this
last session addresses the power in numbers.
These past eight weeks, weve touched on four themes in the field of girls education: (1) access to
education, (2) public health and education (3) education in emergencies, and (4) education and
empowerment.
One may be thinking, I know more, but now what? These next two sessions are devoted to
womens empowerment and change.

READINGS, MEDIA, and WEBSITES

Ruksanas Story: Girl Rising (video)
Women Deliver (website and organization)
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women CEDAW)
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee BRAC (website)
Grameen (website)
Interview with Meet the Writer from Sierra Leone: (Aminatta Forna Girl Rising)
Partnerships for Girls Education: OXFAM
One Billion Rising: Global campaign against violence against women and girls
Girl Effect The Headlines
Ten Ways to Help Girls Transform the World: Worldpulse

Recommended

The Gender Audit Handbook: Interaction - recommended

Is Global Development the Answer to Ending Poverty in the Developing World? (The
Guardian)
SEE Model (Simulations in Equity for Education): World Bank recommended

TWO-PART ASSIGNMENT
Part 1: Extending Resources from Educating Girls
I hope you have benefited from the readings and resources. It is, by no means, an exhaustive list.
Id would like to enlist you in creating a catalog of additional resources for these four themes so
that the course gets better and better, the more we teach it.

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Please access this Google Document: Educating Girls Course Resources. This is a shared
effort, so please do not write over someone elses work. Only those who have the link (i.e.
colleagues in this course) have access.
There are four tabs at the bottom, one for each of the four themes: (1) Access to education
(2) Education in Emergencies (3) Education and Public Health, and (4) Education and
Empowerment
A resource can be a person, as well as an organization, a news aggregator, a lesson-plan
repository whatever you believe will enhance this course
Column D is for your name. When weve collected the resources, well combine them in
a searchable and public resource bank on a site Im developing:
http://GirlsNeedtoKnow.org site and will connected that site to a large social network. In
other words, your contributions will get visibility

EDUCATING GIRLS | A self-paced course offered free by Teachers Without Borders 23

Part 1I: Connecting and Collaborating
Organizations and networks matter, and they need you, as you probably have seen when doing
the assignment on funding (donor or recipient organization). Heres what I would like you to do:
Join BRAC, Grameen, or any other global womens network focusing on development and
education
Identify an area that stirs your personal or professional aspirations
Participate in a conversation and describe the nature of the conversations you have joined
there
Post a discussion topic on what youve learned (you can be quite brief, but include a link
to the discussion or organization)

OPTIONAL DISCUSSION: Earlier in the course (the survey), I asked you to write down your list
of how you ranked the four issues. Please take another look at that list. How does it feel? Has it
changed? Strengthened your conviction?

COURSE EVALUATION: to be posted.

A Final Note

Thank you so very much for participating

in this course. Together, we have created a
new community, and though we may not
have been able to meet each other face-to-
face, weve met this global issue head-on.
From here, well grow and strengthen the
course and, I hope, grow and strengthen
our ties to each other.
All good things begin in hospitality and,
for the time being, end in gratitude. On
the Girls Need to Know site, please post a
thank you to your colleagues for their
efforts on behalf of girls education,
worldwide.

EDUCATING GIRLS | A self-paced course offered free by Teachers Without Borders 24

 Appendix: Girls Education and Public Health:
My Community Template Presentation

Your Name
Date
Course: Educating Girls
Johns Hopkins University School of Education and Teachers Without Borders

MY COMMUNITY ASSETS

NAME OF COMMUNITY
What kind of community it is, wheredetails

AN ISSUE WE FACE AND THE CHALLENGES WE MUST ADDRESS

Describe it here. Best to be as specific as possible. If its HIV-AIDS, for instance, what are the
numbers that make this a real problem in your community? Cite the research

ASSETS WITHIN 50 MILES/KILOMETERS CONNECTING PUBLIC HEALTH

AND EDUCATION
What are the assets that someone in your community can access (and even know about)? Cite your
sources here, including an interaction with someone working directly in this area.

REACTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Were you surprised by what you learned? Worried? Suspicious or pride affirmed? What new
issues come to mind? What would you do to address these issues? Why do you feel this way?