Today marks the 6th anniversary of the UN led mission that brings awareness to the needs of girls, globally dubbed the ‘International Day of the Girl’. This mission was created as a proactive way to lessen the gap that eventually grows between boys and girls which realizes itself in fundamental inequalities between men and women.
This year the UN will be championing the theme: With Her: A Skilled GirlForce, bringing much needed attention to the lack of focus on education for girls in the skilled and educated workforce sector.
Today marks the beginning of a year long effort to advocate for a focus of funds and attention to the gap that will continue to perpetuate itself unless we take action. If you’re interested in getting involved here are some resources.
And some ways to get involved:
- Mentorship! Being an example to a young woman is a tried, tested and true way to see real change right in front of your eyes. If you’re in Toronto, GEM is an amazing foundation doing just that.
- You can donate to Unicef or to the Malala Fund.
- Talk to your colleagues, business partners and bosses about this topic and continue the conversation around inequality in the workforce to help draw the attention this issue needs to affect real change.
If what’s going on in the US and around the world isn’t enough indication that we are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of equality between women and men, these statistics just might:
Women account for only 4.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs, just 22% of the world’s parliamentarians are women and 40% of women don’t identify at all with the women they see in advertising.
xx,
Coco