I recently read an article in Time magazine about Girl Up (girlup.org), an organization that “aims to mobilize 100,000 American girls to raise money and awareness to fight poverty, sexual violence and child marriage. In the article, writer Nancy Gibbs talks about how educating girls can have such a huge impact on societies all over the world. Here are some of the statistics she quotes:

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 percent to 25 percent
• Girls who stay in school for seven or more years typically marry four years later and have two fewer children than girls who dropp out.
• When girls and women earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it in their families.
• Less than 2 cents of every development dollar goes to girls.

Girl Up is a campaign of the United Nations Foundation, and its website has great information about what they do and how you may be able to get involved. I encourage you to check out the site; you may even be inspired to get your mother-daughter book club involved in a project that may benefit girls around the world.