"Pink Bags" scholarships for young girls

The coronavirus pandemic is affecting more and more people around the globe and, besides the health emergency, significant issues are becoming apparent, particularly at the economic and social level. In an effort to prevent the virus to spread, many countries declared preventive lockdown, which is helping on one side to reduce the impact of Covid-19 on people’s health and therefore on health systems, but on the other side is dramatically affecting millions of people, especially among the most vulnerable ones. As a consequence of lockdown, in fact, the informal sector in which most poor workers operate has been particularly affected: many people depend on daily labor and lost their sources of petty earnings with which they used to feed their families, others lost their employment especially in the private sector, many small-scale industries closed down, and there was an increase in the prices of essential goods, which made it even more difficult for households to cope with this new dramatic situation. Most of them do not have savings nor, in many cases, the possibility to store commodities for the next day and are relying on loans from neighbors or pawn shops.

In India and Bangladesh, countries in which Mission Bambini Foundation has been working since 20 years in partnership with several local organizations, the social and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are huge and risk to undermine decades of successes in local development and particularly having regard to the most vulnerable people in the community, namely poor women and girls. In 2018, according to the latest statistics by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, in the world, 129.2 million girls were out of school. In Southern Asia, in particular, girls are disadvantaged for almost all levels of education. The coronavirus pandemic is likely to have a huge impact on them, with an increased risk of sexual exploitation, early pregnancy and forced marriage. The economic hardships caused by the crisis will likely induce some families to invest less in girls' education beside increasing their domestic and caring responsibilities.

STORIES OF HOPE

Ruma M.  is the daughter of Arun Mondal in a poor family of Balia village of Kheshra union under Tala Upazilla ofSatkhira district. She is a student of HSC 2^nd year of Shalikha Degree College. Her father is a van puller and her mother Sumati M. also works as a day laborer. Ruma helps her mother with household work as well as her study. The member in their family is four. Ruma  gets stipend from Dalits in every month, which she spends on her study. Her wish is that she will study up to her master's degree. After finishing her studies, she will get a job and remove the troubles of her parents.

Due to the covid-19 pandemics, according UNESCO, 11 million girls might never come back to school.

Which are the reasons why girls do not start or complete school?

There are many different types of reasons that are related to socio-cultural, geographical, health, religious, economic and educational factors[1]:

• Poverty: poor families often prioritize other expenses than their daughters’ schooling. Moreover, the burden of poverty, such as malnutrition and ill health quite often affect girls more than boys, directly influencing their school performance.
• Gender stereotypes and gendered attitudes: traditional perceptions of gender roles often mean that educating girls is not regarded as being equally relevant and valuable as educating boys. Girls might end up not going to school because their parents consider their contribution to the household chores more valuable than their education.
• Child marriage: it is estimated that 12 million girls under the age of 18 are married each year in the world and in most cases they leave school. Over 650 million women alive today were married as children[2].
• Early pregnancy: girls who become pregnant and have children often do not return to school.
• Inappropriate sanitation facilities at school: many girls leave school when they reach puberty due to a lack of separate and appropriate sanitation facilities.
• Lack of sanitary pads: due to poverty, many girls can find the cost to buy sanitary pads unaffordable and therefore drop out or miss days of school after puberty
• Lack of female teachers: some parents do not want to send their daughters to school when they reach puberty, unless the school has female teachers. On getting to school, in fact, girls can face discrimination from teachers and opposite-sex classmates. In some cases they suffer violence by their teachers, peers and other people in the school environment; this situation can cause parents to withdraw girls from school in order to keep them safe.
• Distance from home to school: in some cases the nearest school might be up to 3 hours long walk away. Beside the fact that distance directly affects the time girls can dedicate to household chores, in some cases there may also be risks of gender-based violence on the way to school and the fear of dangers might prevent some parents from sending their daughters to school.

Most of these factors are even getting worse due to the covid-19 pandemics: many poor families are becoming poorer due to job loss and difficulties to earn a living, mothers face an increased workload as children stay at home from school and this strengthens gender stereotypes.

Why is it so important to educate girls?

First of all because it is their intrinsic right, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child[1].

Secondly because girls’ education promotes sustainable development. When girls gain access to education they acquire important knowledge that gives them greater potential for employment and income-earning as adults. Even with limited schooling, the impact of education can be observed. Studies show that for each additional year of schooling, a girl in a low-income country will increase her future income even though the extent of this increase varies according to the methodology applied.

Finally, with adequate education, most early and combined marriages could be prevented. For girls who studied for 7 years, the age of marriage is postponed by 4 years and women who completed secondary education on average have 2.3 children fewer than women with no education. If all the girls in low and middle-income countries completed primary school, this would reduce the under-5 mortality by 15% and if all of them completed secondary school this would reduce it by 49%. Educated women are also more likely not to justify their husband’s violence and dangerous practices such as genital mutilations and can become active leaders of change in their communities.

In general, the cost-to-benefit ratio for primary school is higher than for lower and upper secondary education. However, there are two exceptions, which are the reduction of the age at first birth for which it is 40% more cost-effective to invest in lower secondary than in primary education, and the increase in the use of media.

STORY FROM THE FIELD

Tumpa S.is the daughter of Narayan S. in a poor family of Balia village in Kheshra union of Tala upazila of Satkhira district. She is a meritorious student of HSC 2^nd year of Shalikha Degree College. Her father is a van puller and mother is a housewife. Her father found it difficult to pay for her educational expenses after domestic expenses. Tumpa  spends the monthly stipend from the Dalits on education. Her parents thanked the Dalit organization for this. But the money she gets from Dalits does not cover her entire education. Tumpa wants to establish itself after completing her education. That’s why she worked as a tailor in addition to his education and paid for her own education.