FundRaising Malawi: November 2008

It's happening. Raising Malawi and Madonna are building a leadership academy for girls in Malawi. It's a secondary school (grades 7 thru 12) that aims to give girls who are serious about bettering themselves the chance to make their dreams come true. The curriculum will include medicine, business, educator training and law. Graduates will be among the best and brightest in the world.

The idea is that girls (like boys) will have a fair shot at becoming leaders in their own communities. It's a known fact that when you educate and empower a girl, she will bring her leadership and learning back to benefit her community. And in so doing, communities get transformed. This is happening the world over, one girl at a time. We must invest in girls!

I love this video by the Nike Foundation. It sets up the issue nicely.

Raising Malawi is working with some of the foremost experts in the world to create a model for education that can be replicated in other impoverished countries. That's where we come in -- you, me, us. It's going to take all of our energy. This way, we all own a piece and it doesn't rely on any one individual or organization (an impossible feat for something of this magnitude).

Here is a message from Madonna urging you to get involved.

Click here or go to http://www.raisingmalawi.org/rm_girlsacademy.php

Newsweek ran a great article recently that further explains the importance of educating girls. Sadly, girls represent the majority of children out of school. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, only one out of five girls gets any education at all. If we really aim to raise a country and break the chains of poverty, then the answer is to educate the next generation of young women. Let's make the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls the model for how that needs to get done.

And BTW, while the core mission of the school is to empower girls, it's also designed to be totally sustainable. Raising Malawi is consulting with experts on how to use wind, solar, local resources for energy (e.g., the nuts from the trees!), etc.

There's a big trend in the world right now called "leap frogging". It's where we're able to do profoundly innovative things in less-developed countries that are not weighed down by existing infrastructures. You see this a lot in India, for example, who's skipping over CDMA/land lines like we built in the US - all the ugly eyesores of wires connecting home to home. India is now in a position to 'leap frog' wire lines into the next gen of innovation - digital/mobile. Now, the U.S. is playing catch-up.

Similarly, the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls can introduce new innovations the rest of the world will want to model. It's as exciting as it is ironic. Like it says in the Tao, "All things turn to their opposite." Now is the time for Malawi. Perhaps someday, one of these future leaders will come up with a bailout package that makes sense for America.