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"As we help their daughters achieve the dignity of an education we
enhance the dignity of ours and all other daughters."  Pedro C. Moreno


 

The Need: Girls account for more than one half of the approximately 75 million children out of school.  Though major gains have been made to narrow the gap in girls education and in some parts of the world girls are doing even better than boys (mostly in the United States, parts of Europe and the Caribbean) the World Bank states that “in developing countries, girls lag behind boys” and “many more girls drop out along the way than boys.”

For example, for every 100 boys out of school in Yemen there are 270 girls, in Iraq 316 girls, in India 426 girls, and in Benin 257 girls (UNESCO GMR, 2007). 

Reasons why:  Take care of relatives, cook for, serve or work for their families, lack of appropriate sanitary/bathroom facilities, sexual harassment, adverse cultural practices and distance to schools. 

Partly because of this lack of education, too many girls end up in domestic servitude, early marriage, abused and/or neglected, trafficked and prostituted, genitally mutilated, unable to access opportunities and continually dependent on others for all their needs.

 

Of the 774 million illiterate adults worldwide, 64% of them are women.  Thus the vicious circle continues, particularly as countries move toward a knowledge society, since an illiterate mother is far less likely to send her daughters to school.

 

Our Response:  A team of traditional and concerned family men/fathers who have seen the light on these issues, appealing to the father’s heart in other men in traditional/religious developing countries so they can help their daughters and other girls enroll and complete primary education and then access the same educational, economic and societal opportunities as boys.

The evidence shows that a single year of primary education correlates with a 10 to 20 percent increase in women's wages later in life. An extra year of a woman's education has been shown to reduce the risk that her children will die in infancy by 5 to 10 percent. Education offers what the World Bank has referred to as a window of hope in helping prevent the spread of AIDS among today's children. A recent study of a school-based AIDS education program in Uganda found a 75 percent reduction in the likelihood that children would be sexually active in their last year of primary school. A study of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa found that from 1960 to 1992, more equal education between men and women could have led to nearly 1 percent higher annual per capita GDP growth.

Related to the father-daughter relationship and literacy, a study of children in K-2nd grades suggested that Mexican-American fathers who shared child rearing duties with their spouses, as opposed to dividing these tasks, were more likely to engage in reading and writing activities with their children (Ortiz, R. 1996. Fathers’ contribution to children’s early literacy development: The relationship of marital role functions. Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 16, Boise State University). 

Also, a Head Start report published in June 2004 points out that “Children who grow up with warm, nurturing, and actively involved fathers reap tremendous benefits, including better school performance, increased self-esteem, healthier relationships with peers and caregivers, and future access to greater financial resources, according to a recent review of the research. In fact, children’s potential for academic success begins long before school age. When fathers read to their young children on a regular basis, they tend to raise children who are superior readers, who perform better in school, and who have better relationship skills. Green, S. 2002. Involving fathers in children’s literacy development: An introduction to the Fathers Reading Every Day (FRED) Program. Journal of Extension, 40(5).”

In her book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters (Ballantine Books), Dr. Meg Meeker, a pediatrician, asserts that teenage girls are twice as likely to stay in school if their fathers are involved in their lives.

First Year Goal:  Microtarget and help 5,000 girls get back to primary school in 5 countries from geographic areas with stubbornly low rates of completion of primary school by girls.  The 5 hot spot countries we selected are:UNESCO CHART

Afghanistan (literacy 51% male, 21% female)

Yemen (literacy 70% males, 30% females; 80% of boys in primary school, and 50% of girls)

Benin, (literacy 48% male, 23% female)

Guatemala, (literacy 75.4% males, 63.3% females)

India, (literacy 78% male, 55% female)

Helping these countries would significantly contribute to achieving universal pimary education for boys and girls, particularly in light of the Millenium Challenge target to be completed by 2015.

UNESCO CHART ON PROGRESS TOWARD UNIVERSAL EDUCATION FOR BOYS AND GIRLS (Gross Enrollment Ratios in primary school)   http://www.unesco.org/education/gmr2008/mdgnrbnewyork.pdf

The geographic areas represented are South and West Asia (where 2/3rds of children out-of-school are girls), Arab countries (60% of out-of-school children are girls), and Sub-Sahara Africa (where 40 million out-of-school girls live).  Guatemala’s educational system is one of the neediest in Latin America and its gender ratio of primary completion for 15- to 24-year-olds is 0.82.

 

Why a Father to Father Approach:

 

So far, the heavy burden in the struggle for girls’ education has been carried mostly by women in conjunction with NGOs, governments and multi-lateral organizations, and they have done heroic work with amazing results.  But, as shown above, more work is needed, particularly in these hot spot countries and regions.

Men in the meantime have stayed on the sidelines.  Recently, however, the need for men and boys involvement is being recognized by USAID, the UN, PAHO, the World Bank and others (see references at the end).   The Congressional Research Service in a Report to Congress on international violence against women and the U.S. response (March 31, 2008) has determined that one important emerging issue relates to the “role of men and boys” in prevention.   

Most of the countries (in Asia, Africa, Arab countries or Latin America) in which girls don’t have access to school or drop out in greater numbers than boys are traditional/religious countries led by traditional, often religious men. 

Thus, the need for traditional, and even religious family men/fathers who have seen the light on these issues to get involved and help those other traditional/religious men see the advantage of allowing and encouraging their daughters and other girls to access education, and eventually economic assets, and opportunities socially and politically.

Some years ago, I was struck by a story an old professor friend of mine told while giving me a tour of Princeton University.  Commenting on how Princeton had open to girls in 1969, after more than 200 years of being boys-only, he mentioned that besides the studies, the benefits and other considerations, it was the fathers’ hearts that gave the final push, since they wanted for their daughters the same quality education that the boys were receiving (which at the time was not available to girls at other institutions, except for a few public universities).  As a result, Jordan’s Queen Noor was one of the first women to graduate from Princeton University.

 

Benefits of Our Approach:

FADA Founder:  President, Pedro C. Moreno, an expert on social policy and economic mobility who has worked for over 15 years with government and non-governmental organizations helping mainstream marginalized individuals and communities, including ethnic minorities, trafficked women and girls, low-income and refugee populations, out-of-school boys and girls, and others.   Moreno has worked for more than 15 years for children and family and as a United States Government delegate to the Executive Board of UNICEF he promoted education for all children, boys and girls.  Moreno attended and spoke at the NGO Forum of the UN Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, helped negotiate the outcome document for the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children (N.Y. 2002), and was a delegate to the WHO-UNICEF Consultation on Child/Adolescent Health (Stockholm, 2002) and other relevant global and regional gatherings.  He actively promoted involved and responsible fatherhood programs (i.e., fathers respecting their wives, helping at home and nurturing their children) during his 6 plus years at the Administration for Children and Families (HHS).

Pedro Moreno knows about poverty, marginalization, and the need for community involvement.  Having grown up in a broken family in Bolivia and while his mother was away working, he and his siblings often lived with relatives and friends.  It took the lives of three students from his school (when the police opened fire on a demonstration) for the local government to build appropriate school bathrooms. 

He remembers vividly the time when he was 11 or so and his mother, after making ends meet by buying and selling merchandise across the border with Argentina, and a couple of failed attempts at establishing a small business, finally undusted the university diploma she had gotten (a type of legal degree) and got a job as a Notary Public in his small town in Bolivia.  That was the beginning of stability in their lives, hope for the future, and the open door for him to eventually come and study in the United States, immigrate and become an American citizen. 

In addition to a law degree from Bolivia, Moreno received a Master’s in international law and economic development from The Fletcher School of Law And Diplomacy at Tufts University, and completed the specialization in negotiation and conflict resolution at the Harvard Negotiation Project.  He has served with the Social Emergency Fund (in cooperation with the World Bank), The Rutherford Institute, Prison Fellowship International, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and until recently he worked for the White House at The White House Drug Policy Office (ONDCP) on demand reduction among youth.

Moreno has traveled in 65 countries in all continents and is a traditional/religious family man who after having some hard-headed ideas about these topics for many years, came to see the light and critical importance of girls education and full participation in all aspects of society.  He is married to the former Amy Cullings and has 3 children, 2 boys and one girl, and is now particularly focused to make sure that his daughter (and others) has all opportunities available to his sons. 

 

References: 

World Bank, Girls Education, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,,contentMDK:20298916~menuPK:617572~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:282386,00.html

UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation/campaign.html

United Nations Girls Education Initiative, http://www.ungei.org/

Council on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=6947

Pan American Health Organization, Men’s Role, http://www.paho.org/english/ad/ge/vawmen.pdf

Nike Foundation’s Girl Effect, http://www.nikefoundation.org/

USAID, http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/education_and_universities/

 

FADA CONTACT:  pmoreno@globalfada.org





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