The Girl Effect

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn speak about the concept of empowerment through education in their book Half the Sky, “The women meanwhile financed the education of younger relatives, and saved enough of their pay to boost national savings rates. This pattern has been called ‘the girl effect’”. Here follows, a few examples of the “girl effect” in locations all around the world.


The Masaai Women Development Organization based in Kenya, is a non-governmental, women-led organization designed specifically to engage and encourage families to keep their daughters in school. With a mission to “empower Maasai women economically and socially through improved access to education, health services, enterprise development and through promotion of human and cultural rights” (Worldpress)

In Tajikistan, Faiziniso Ruziboeva fulfilled her lifelong goal of becoming a doctor and is currently providing vital health information and resources for her community as a trained Community Health Worker. In Tajikistan, there is only one medical school and it is in the nation’s capital. Faiziniso lives in Sughd province, a remote area kept isolated by mountains. Constrained by finances and geography, Faiziniso honored her dream in any way she could, taking first aid as an elective in college, reading and learning on her own, and cultivating this “hobby” of hers. MercyCorp provided Faiziniso with the training she needed to become a community health worker, and she now visits members of the community in their homes, and is available to them when health concerns arise.

An article in Social Science Research took a look at the effect of education and the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Kenya. However, researchers Amy Adamczyk and Meredith Greif didn’t stop there. Included in their inquiries were measureable indications of gender equality and how those things- in combination with education- might impact HIV/AIDS occurrence. What they found was, perhaps, not at all surprising. In cultures where wife beating was an acceptable practice, girls were at least three years younger at the age of their first sex than girls who were educated through secondary education in cultures that did not accept wife beating. Age at first sex can have significant implications for a woman’s likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS. Yet as we know, the economics and culture around her are powerful influences as well. Adamczyk and Grief reassure us that education and empowerment of women can be a commanding force to counter those influences.

Woman to Woman, Coming Together for Positive Change was an HIV/AIDS prevention intervention that was developed by Romero (1999) and modified and implemented by Planned Parenthood of New Mexico. At the time the effort was conducted, facilitators noted that “[t]he vulnerabilities of women are often overlooked by HIV prevention programs that do not recognize how women’s choices may be constrained by poverty, gender roles, and cultural norms” (Romero et all 2006). Women to Women strives to reach out to women, meeting them “where they are” and to educate and empower them to speak from their experience. It was developed as an intervention for high-risk women and utilized empowerment theory to reduce the incidence of HIV among at-risk women, supporting women in access to knowledge of ways to make healthier decisions and empowerment to help women gain control over their economic, social and sexual lives.

The Masaai women joined resources in order to organize their own NGO to focus their energies on the unique needs of their community; Faiziniso found the support to deliver effective and needed health care to the members of her community; women in Kenya demonstrate an impressive response to education and empowerment in terms of HIV contraction; and empowerment of U.S. women at risk of exposure to HIV reduces incidence and strengthens communities. In a multitude of ways across a spectrum of environments, we can see a strong correlation between educating women and empowering communities toward better health and stability.