10 x 10: educate girls | Justin Reeves | TEDxUnisinos

Justin Reeves is the director for the NGO "10x10" and "Girl Rising." He has worked for six years in South America as an anthropologist, as a teacher, and helping develop several NGOs that help women and girls.

He talks about these projetcs and about how the world can change by educating girls.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

So, I work as the director
for NGO partnerships,

for a girls' education campaign
called "10 x 10."

I've had the opportunity to meet and learn

from hundreds of girls
in the developing world

over the course of our campaign.

We've created a multimedia campaign

focused on spreading the word
to the farthest corners of the world

on the value that an education that a girl
receives has on entire communities.

The cornerstone piece to our project
is a feature film, a major motion picture,

that I hope you all will go see
next spring in 2013, called "Girl Rising."

Another part of this process, though,
has allowed me to attend many events

that are focused on girls'
and women's empowerment, education.

Sometimes, I even get
the chance to speak at them.

And something
I find frightening, actually,

is that these events are usually
completely attended by just women.

In fact, I'm sometimes
the only man in attendance.

And I keep getting asked the same
question over, and over, and over again,

and it's always phrased
slightly differently,

and it's something like, "Hey Justin,

so, as a man, why do you think
it's important to educate girls?"

Or, "Justin, why is it
so important to speak out

for the rights of women and girls?"

So today, since I have
a little less than 16 minutes left,

I thought I'd use my time to share
with you a more personal account

and the longer answer on why
I personally believe, as a man,

that investing in girls is the best
investment the global community can make

to see sustainable changes
and lift countries out of poverty.

I'm going to share with you some anecdotes
from journal entries that I've made

after sharing time with girls
in some of the countries

that we're working on from the project.

These observations are meant to inspire

and they're really
just coming from my heart.

I wanted today's talk
to be about storytelling

so that you could understand,
from my perspective,

why this is my conviction.

So, my first story comes
from a place in Uganda,

and the observation
goes something like this:

that little boys grow up to be men,

and that respect for girls
turns into respect for women,

and that this all starts
when girls become empowered

at a really young age.

So, we were in Kampala,
just outside, actually.

The main highway goes down this road,

and there's a little mud hut
in this town called Mpigi,

where we met this girl named Lydia.

Lydia is a phenomenal student.

She's 13 years old.
She's excelling in school.

We learned Lydia's story:

she's the only surviving member
of her entire family.

She lost all three of her siblings to HIV.

They were all born with it
and they all died.

She also lost both of her parents to HIV.

She's the only surviving member,
at 13 years old.

We then found that Lydia was living
in this house with her "Jaja."

Her "Jaja" is her grandma,
and Jaja was an amazing woman.

Obviously, her favorite color is purple

and she's dressed
from head to toe in this gown.

She herself is battling with disability.
She's old and she can hardly walk.

She lost all her siblings to HIV and AIDS.

So, as we were talking to Jaja,

we quickly found that she's
this wonderful, jovial woman,

who laughs hysterically at her own jokes,

and there were all these
little boys running around.

There were eight
little boys in that house,

and as they began
to tell us their stories,

we found that it was one woman, Jaja,

one girl, raising eight
orphaned boys in a house,

a little one-bedroom house
next to the highway.

So, Jaja sort of scooted
over to her makeshift kitchen

and she began to roll out dough
with a beer bottle.

She was going to make samosas
for the children and also to sell.

She began to tell us stories,

and as the day progressed,
we began to observe what was happening.

Jaja just kind of sat there cracking jokes
to herself and laughing hysterically,

but all of the children
who were following Lydia around,

all these little boys who were following
their sister around as she studied,

they would mimic her.

They admired her, they looked up
to her with everything.

So, we started talking to the boys,

and most of the boys said
that they had dreams of going to school.

I mean, you can imagine
that some of them were so young.

Some of them were actually in school.
They said that Lydia is their tutor.

And most of them dreamed
of becoming teachers or doctors.

We asked Lydia on that day
what her dream was, and she told us,

"Well, my dream is that I want
to learn how to drive a car."

And I said, "Why do you want to learn
how to drive a car?"

And she said, "I want to take
my brothers down that highway.

I want to take my brothers down that road

and take them to where
everybody else gets to go."

And, you know, I think
that, that evening, when I got home,

I thought about what she had said
and I thought that it's really incredible,

despite all of these children's odds
that they're up against,

and Lydia in particular -

She not only is carrying the burden
of an entire family of eight new siblings,

but she's excelling in school,

and she's becoming a leader and she's
guiding her brothers up, her and her Jaja.

I have no doubt that those boys are going
to grow up to be teachers and doctors

and that they're never going to forget

that a big counterpart
to their own success

was their sister and their grandmother.

My next story comes
from rural northeastern Ethiopia;

so, way in the north.

It was a phenomenal community
we got to visit there.

They're nomadic people,

who literally follow their camel
and goat herds through the desert,

searching for water and for vegetation.

And so, we met with the elders,
a group of men in this village,

who traditionally have always made
every decision in their history.

They're broken up into nomadic tribes
of about 30 to 70 people,

and they just wander through the desert.

These members are sitting down
with us and they're telling us

how this nonprofit group came
into their community several years ago

and decided to implement
nomadic classrooms.

They were classrooms that could be
broken down just like all of their homes,

packed on the donkeys
and moved out within a day.

And so, they accepted the idea
and they began to train the elders

on the subjects, obviously,

since nobody had ever been
educated in the community.

They had to first teach them math,
science, language, arts.

Well, the elder men decided they really
didn't want to have much to do.

Here's a picture of the nomadic classroom
and some of the girls inside of it.

The older men decided they didn't
want much to do with the education piece.

So, they decided to elect a group
of elder women to run the schools,

called the Central Management Committee,

the first time ever
that they elected a group of females

to have any power in this village.

So I sat down with the
Central Management Committee,

and this committee
was a force to be reckoned with.

They were cloaked in all red and gold.

They really were very frank,

the type of women who looked you
straight in the eye

and didn't have much to say,
but what they said was really important.

That woman there in the middle,
her name is Basu.

Basu is the leader
of the Central Education Committee.

She told us that she's the practitioner
of everything medically related to females

for the last 40 years,

and that she had performed female
genital cutting on every single girl

during her 40 years.

She then went on to describe the process

by which she learned
how to teach the children.

She said that when this nonprofit group
had arrived in their community,

and began to teach the kids
about math, and science -

I'm sorry, the teachers
as well, the elders -

they also took the opportunity
to teach the elders about their bodies,

safety, human rights, their own rights.

She said that, in that moment,

she realized that what
she had done was wrong.

She looked me square
in the eye and she said,

"I haven't cut a girl for seven years,"

and then she looked down
just like she's in that picture.

She looked down, she was bashful,
and the conversation ended.

And, you know,
I've been in many communities

where there are deep-rooted traditions

that have been going on
for hundreds of years,

like female genital cutting
and early marriage.

We're constantly trying to figure out
how we can eradicate these,

and what I think happened in this
particular community were two things.

A group of elder men who had power

gave a group of elder women
a little bit of power.

The elder women then had influence
over the next generation.

The other thing that happened

was these elder women
gained some useful knowledge

that they wouldn't have had before.

They learned about their safety,
about their rights.

So, they utilized the little bit
of newfound power they had,

they utilized this useful
knowledge that they had,

and they decided it was wrong,

and 40 years of tradition,
eradicated in one generation.

My next story actually
comes from the same village.

One of the girls who was pictured
in the last photograph,

of all of them in school,
her name is Bula.

So, Bula is 11, and she was really
only comfortable talking to me

when her best friend, pictured
behind her, was right by her side.

Like any teenage girl,

they'd laugh at almost anything
that came out of my mouth.

They'd grab each other's
arms and just giggle.

We were really interested to learn
about what constitutes a girl's day

in this nomadic community,
and what school's like.

Bula's excelling in school.

She's in the second cycle
of the three-cycle program

that these alternative
basic education centers have.

She told us that she generally wakes up
before the sun rises.

This is a normal day.

She cleans her house
and then she cleans her neighbor's house.

Then, she goes out
and milks the camels and goats.

Then, she comes in and prepares
breakfast for her whole family,

and the sun has yet to rise.

Then, she goes to school
and she studies all day long.

After school, she usually
walks around 6 kilometers

to go get clean water, to come back
to feed her camels and goats,

and her family.

Then, she prepares dinner.
By this time, it's dark.

There's no electricity, so she studies
by candlelight every night.

She loves school.

She told us her favorite subject
was math and science,

and I asked her what she wanted to be.

She told me that she wanted
to be a healthcare worker.

So I said, "Why do you want
to be a healthcare worker?"

She said, "Because there's
no healthcare in my community.

We're always moving and I want to be
the solution to that problem."

I was taken back
by her answer and I thought,

"That's pretty advanced
for an 11-year-old."

And then, she quickly
started talking again.

She said, "But I'm engaged to be married.

I just met my husband,
my fiancé, last week.

My father found a great man,
with a lot of camels.

I'm going to be married."

I thought, "This is so strange
that she's sharing with me her dream

of becoming a doctor,
or a healthcare worker,

when she knows, as soon as a woman
in her community is married,

they're unable to finish school."

So, I pondered that one
and I thought about it for a while.

What I realized is that, once a girl
sees the value of her education,

she also sees the value of education
for the next generation.

And while Bula shared with me
that dream as if it were her own,

I know she actually shared it with me

because she knows,
when she has children some day,

they will be the solution to the problem,

they will become doctors
and they will become health workers.

From there, I'm going
to take you to a place

that's a little closer to home.

I was on the other side of Brazil,

right across the border, actually,
but in the Andes of Peru,

at 5,100 meters, working on the project.

And this town is on top of the glacier
that's called "La Rinconada."

It's about 100,000 people crammed

at the very top of an icy mountain
that never melts.

The reality for anyone there
to be successful is meek;

much less if you're a girl.

There's one overcrowded school,

and we were really interested
when we went there to visit this school

to find out what constitutes
a girl's dream at the top of the glacier,

where there's no real tangible escape.

So, as the girls began coming up to us
and talking to us about their dreams,

what we found was
that we are learning more

about the realities of the situation
for girls and adolescents in that village.

Since it's a mining town,

the village opens its doors nightly
to masses of brothels,

where the miners squander their earnings.

The reality for a girl,
as she grows up in this town,

is HIV and AIDS,
it's gender-based violence,

it's early pregnancy, it's trafficking.

So, instead of dreams, we were learning
a lot harder realities for the girls.

This whole time there was another girl

who was not interested
in talking to us at all.

She sort of sat away from us at our table.

The whole day, she was just sort of being.

She was patient, she was writing
incessantly in her journal.

She would close her book,
she would just watch,

and as the night began to fall and
the rest of the girls began to go home,

we went over and approached this girl.

She was meek and she was
sort of slumped over,

she didn't look very happy,

and we asked her
what was inside of her book.

And she opened it and it was
pages and pages of poetry,

poetry written over and over
by her favorite Spanish poets,

a lot of it that she had written herself,
and she just began to brighten.

This girl that was down
like this and shy all day,

her smile became so big
it could hardly fit into her mouth.

She said her name was Senna.

Senna was 14 when we met her
and she told us her story that day.

She said that she was named Senna

because her father loved
"Xena, the Warrior Princess,"

who he had seen on TV.

She was born a mere two pounds,
very, very tiny, and she almost died,

and her father decided to name
his daughter after the princess warrior,

because he wanted her
to fight for her life.

Senna fought for her life
and she survived,

and she started going to school,

and her father continued
to instill this strength within her.

He told her, "Senna, you are a warrior.

The more you know,
the better you'll fight.

The more education you get,
the stronger you'll be."

He told her this every single day.

He said, "You have
all the makings of an engineer."

One day, Senna got home from school,

and she found out that her dad
had had a terrible accident in the mine.

He didn't die, but he was very sick.

She had to stop going to school

and she picked up a job
cleaning the public pit latrines,

the only place that a girl her age
could work that was safe.

She made cents per day,

those cents she would give to her family
to help pay for his medication.

His health began
to deteriorate very quickly

and, unfortunately, Senna's father died.

When Senna told us her father died,

she also said that's when she began
to recite her poetry.

As we sat in front of her,
she literally became a different person.

I saw something that was
so much more ethereal,

it's like nothing I've ever seen.

She stood up and she began
to recite poetry to us,

and the warrior, and the anger,
and the passion, and the opportunity,

and everything she had
was like nothing I'd ever seen.

So, Senna now recites
her poetry to inspire others.

She's excelling in school.

She's won two poetry competitions
in the country of Peru.

She's well on her way to becoming
the very first girl

she's ever known to complete school
and go on to university.

Countless times, I have seen
that it's been a man,

or a brother, a teacher, a male teacher,
a male influence in a girl's life,

that has instilled in them the strength
and the dignity they deserve,

to lift them from the barriers
that they were in.

This happens all the time,

so my question is, why aren't men
taking a more active role in girls' lives?

We've got Senna, we've got Jaja, Lydia.

We've got the Central Education Committee.

We've got all girls all over the world.

It's time we stand up
and start taking action.

Men, these moments matter.
Everything that we say and do matters.

You're around girls and women
all of the time. Encourage them.

Encourage them like Senna's
father encouraged her.

Use your own opportunities

and the own knowledge
that you've been given to mentor a girl.

Open up a new door for a girl.

Talk to her and listen to her carefully.

Her stories, her ideas,
her perspectives could change you.

We know that an educated
girl will marry later.

She will have fewer children.

We know she's more likely
to stand up to abuse

and less likely to contract HIV and AIDS.

We know that, when a girl gets educated,
she grows up and could become a mother.

She will educate her sons
and her daughters equally.

Her decisions begin to matter.

Her decisions begin to shape
the decisions that make her family,

that make her community,
that shape her society,

and eventually shape her entire nation.

Folks, I believe that we're
in a point right now in our lifetime

where, in this generation, we can see
in our lives a change happen.

I encourage you all to become
active participants.

Do something simple. Act for girls.

I truly believe that, in our lifetime,

we can look back on these days
from a gender-inclusive perspective,

and we'll remember when we used to say

how important it was
to educate and invest in girls.

I want us all to feel proud at that day,

knowing that we were active participants

in a moment in time
that unlocked a better future

and more opportunities
for girls and for the entire world.

Thank you.

(Applause)