The Day was officially enacted by a UN General Assembly Resolution this past March, which recognized that the “empowerment of and investment in girls” is “critical to economic growth” and to achieving the UN Millennium Goals (including the eradication of extreme poverty). It stated that girls’ “meaningful participation in decisions that affect them” is key in “breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and in promoting and protecting the full and effective enjoyment of their human rights.” It recognized that “empowering girls requires their active participation in decision-making processes and the active support and engagement of their parents, legal guardians, families and care providers, as well as boys and men and the wider community.”

Ramya, a scholarship recipient, takes the mike to introduce herself to Insight Trip travelers when they visit her school.

The theme of today is “Too Young to Wed.” The Nike Foundation finds that when a girl receives seven or more years of education, she will marry four years later and have 2.2 fewer children. When women wait until after their teenage years to have children, it dramatically improves maternal and infant mortality. Giving girls the tools to take a more active role in public life, and the skills to be financially independent, not only improves their well-being but that of their future children too! And this week, this emphasis on the importance of education is even more poignant as we read the sad news that Malala Yousufzai, a champion of girls’ education and girls’ rights in Pakistan, and two other girls were shot by extremists while walking to school. Speaking today at a high-level panel discussion, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the Day is also an occasion to highlight the “alarming” levels of discrimination, violence and abuse that girls face worldwide. “The attack on [Malala] was abhorrent and cowardly,” said the Secretary-General. “The terrorists showed what frightens them most: a girl with a book. Nowhere in the world should it be an act of bravery for a young girl to go to school.”

In honor of the Day, we’d like to share the story of one little girl who is full of hope that she will be able to achieve her dreams. She is the recipient of a scholarship through Opportunity’s education finance program in India. Her name is Ramya, she is in first grade and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. (See the picture at right of Ramya and several of her classmates who are also scholarship recipients.) Several of our supporters and staff met her while on an August Insight Trip to India, and she clearly stole their hearts. Adele Nandan, director of our International Education department, says, “Whenever I look at this picture, Ramya makes me smile. She is so excited to share her dreams with us when she grows up.”

At Opportunity, we’re inspired by the hopes of little girls around the world, who dare to dream about achieving their goals and receiving an education, so that they can have a voice and have choices that their parents never had. That’s the significance of the International Day of the Girl. And it’s why we’re motivated to empower girls.

Microfinance client Annie Nyangomba opens an account at Opportunity DR Congo.

Tonight, in Sierra Leone, you’ll meet Amie Kandeh, a fierce advocate for women’s protection from violence, and learn alongside actress Eva Mendes how Amie is rescuing female victims and teaching them their due rights. In Cambodia, Meg Ryan will show how Somaly Mam, an anti-trafficking activist, fights the sex trade and helps rehabilitate thousands of girls who are survivors of trafficking. Then, end Monday night in Vietnam with former Microsoft executive John Wood, founder of Room to Read, an organization that creates libraries and schools across Asia and Africa. Learn with Gabrielle Union how education and literacy can break the cycle of poverty.

“Women are not the problem–they are the solution,” Nicholas and Sheryl remind us. See the transformational work of Amie, Somaly, John and so many others, and you’ll be inspired to take action for women’s rights around the world.

Opportunity is proud to be part of the “Half the Sky Movement” to invest in women. Ninety-three percent of Opportunity International loans go to women, who consistently show resilience and determination to change their world and the future of their children. Though microfinance is available to both men and women entrepreneurs, the gains that women achieve are almost three times more likely to be reinvested in their children, providing a powerful generational multiplier that accelerates economic stability and growth. Visit opportunity.org/halfthesky for more info about our partnership with this powerful movement. Go to opportunity.org/give to support a woman working her way out of poverty.

Half the Sky documentary’s most recent trailer:

Janet sits in the small Tanzanian clinic waiting for the birth of her child. (everymothercounts.org)

What was so powerful was that we see the urgency of this global issue through the eyes of expectant mothers. While the circumstances of each story were unique, every woman struggled to receive the necessary quality care putting them, their unborn children, their families, and their communities at risk. They faced shame and stigma, were unable to afford the costs of care, navigated emotional loss, suffered unsafe abortions to avoid harsh penalties, struggled to find a safe place to give birth, and the list continues. However, despite the pain and difficulties, these women showed immense strength in the face of their struggle.

I am not a mother but one day I hope to be. While watching this film, I was having trouble putting myself in any of these situations. It was not that I didn’t want to, it was that I could not imagine harnessing the strength embodied by a woman like Janet from Tanzania as she walked over five miles to a clinic while enduring labor pains, only to be turned away because they were not equipped to handle the situation.

As the film ended I realized that these women’s strength was not a choice; it was not an option. It was a survival mechanism. They were fighting for their lives and the lives of their children. As Burns stated in her Q&A on everymothercounts.org, endless strength becomes necessary, “as they’ve yet to be empowered by their societies to claim their basic human reproductive rights of safe pregnancy.” These women fight to overcome immovable barriers. What does it take to secure the health and safety of women and mothers around the world? What are we willing to do to help?

This was a private screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center hosted by suburban Chicago-based company Lifeway Foods, Inc. There was a post-film Q&A with Burns and Lifeway CEO Julie Smolyansky, moderated by Jane Saks, executive director of Columbia College Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts & Media. The event was attended by 200 local nonprofit and business leaders, and members of the media, interested in women’s issues.

Burns opens “No Woman, No Cry” with her recollections, and home video footage, of the complications from the birth of her first child several years ago. While she received care and recovered within a few days, left only with the emotional scars from those terrifying moments, she was shocked to learn that hundreds of thousands of women die each year during childbirth around the world—and that 90% of these deaths are preventable. Each of the four subsequent segments in the film featured women living in cultures or communities that presented their own unique barriers to better maternal health, whether they be cultural or financial.

In the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sabina Faiz Rashid Ph.D. of BRAC University says that maternal mortality and health is not always about facilities and lack of access. Sometimes it’s about the assumptions and attitudes that influence the health choices made by people in poverty. In the case of Monica, she insists on having her baby at home with an untrained mother’s aid instead of heeding the advice of her local BRAC health worker by going to the nearby, relatively well-equipped hospital. Monica makes this choice because of the social stigma of being seen in public in her condition, and because of the widely held belief in the slums that hospitals were dangerous and risky places, only to be braved if absolutely necessary. Indeed, when she had gone into the hospital for a sonogram in her ninth month, the male doctor admonishes her female health advocate from BRAC and ignores Monica completely while his nurses examines her.

In Tanzania, mother Janet has a different barrier. She has no qualms about going to the local clinic, and when she has strong pains that she thinks are labor, she goes on foot to get care. When these turn out to be false labor, she must make the arduous trek back home. Finally, when she comes in again and the nurse tells her she needs the facilities at Mt. Neru Hospital, she’s willing to go but has no money and no transportation. Burns and her film crew arrange a car to take her to Mt. Neru (in a breach of cinema verité and an intervention that wouldn’t please documentary purists, though it speaks to Burns’s compassion for her subjects).

The U.S. segment featured one couple’s sad personal story, but frankly, it shocked me as much for the statistics. The U.S. ranks at a deplorable 50th in maternal mortality in the world despite the fact that it spends more on healthcare per capita than any other nation in the world, and an astonishing two women per day die from pregnancy complications here. For the 20% of U.S. women without health insurance, even a healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy can cost thousands of dollars. The irony, Burns tells us as the narrator, is that though maternal healthcare is not readily available elsewhere in the world, if it can be accessed it’s often free. In the U.S., where quality healthcare is abundantly available, it is anything but.

Opportunity staff and supporters at the lunch reception before "No Woman, No Cry" screening and Q&A.

In Guatemala, Dr. Linda Valencia, who is herself eight months pregnant, is a compassionate caretaker, talking through family-planning options with her impoverished patients in an honest, open way that treats them as equal partners in their choices. In a country where abortions are controversial, she’s working to be sure women have the facts about the procedure, and to reduce complications should they choose to get one by offering good post-abortion care. Linda says, “I need to get rid of the authoritarianism and paternalism of a doctor who tells women what to do.”

In addition to the learnings from the film, the Q&A afterwards was thought-provoking. Smolyansky, the youngest female CEO of a publicly-traded company and a recent traveling companion with Burns to Bangladesh, discussed women’s issues with enthusiasm, laced with occasional indignation. Saks, a seasoned educator well-versed in these issues, mediated the discussion with control and wisdom. And Burns was remarkable not only for her passion but for her grace and poise on the panel. She seemed thoroughly unflappable, and though none of the questioners in the audience were remotely confrontational, I became convinced that even with less-civil audiences, she would be unruffled.

“No Woman, No Cry” is very well-done and raises critical questions about the needs for maternal health both at home and abroad. If you have the opportunity to see it, you should do so. After all, remarks Burns in the Q&A, maternal health is fifth on the list of Millennium Development Goals and as human beings, we have all been affected by childbirth at least once. This is an issue that affects us all.