This October I’m joining a bunch of passionate and fun people around the world who are wearing school dresses and doing crazy shit so girls in Africa can go to school. Why? Read on, friend.
Me with Chantelle Baxter, co-founder of OneGirl.org, sporting our school dresses at the World Domination Summit in July 2012
It costs only $240 Australian to send a girl in Sierra Leone to school for an entire year. I plan to raise at least $240 by doing what I do – traveling – in a school dress!
I’ll be wearing my school dress on the plane from Asheville to Boston this evening to raise awareness and hopefully a few bucks.
You know I’m going to make a few new friends 🙂 Want pictures? Look for them on Twitter (@helloaud) and Facebook If you’d like to donate, I would honored to have your support ~ any amount is welcome. My campaign page is http://doitinadress.com/helloaud
Thank you for reading this post. You can learn more information about this movement at http://doitinadress.com and http://www.onegirl.org.au Or boogie your way over to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
And remember, the month is still young – why not start a campaign of your own? Be the change, y’all! ♥ Audrey
THE MANIFESTO
Humanity is at a crossroads.
Poverty. Inequality. Rape. Hunger. Violence. And that’s just the beginning. These issues affect women and girls the most. Out of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty, more than 70% are women and girls.
But why? We’re more educated than we’ve ever been. We’re more connected than at any time in history. There is more money and technology in the world today than there’s ever been before.
And yet, 60 MILLION GIRLS are UNABLE to access the ONE thing that will CHANGE THEIR LIVES FOREVER.
Something simple. Something basic. Something that we take for granted. AN EDUCATION.
The time has come to create a movement that will shift the future of humanity. This movement will be led by a 12 year old girl.
A 12 year old girl born in Sierra Leone, West Africa. A girl who is more likely to be sexually assaulted than to attend high school. Without an education, she’s likely to be married before her 15th birthday, and pregnant before her body is ready. If she survives childbirth, she might have to sell her body to feed her family. This exposes her to HIV. She’s stuck in the cycle of poverty.
But it doesn’t have to look like this -EDUCATION CHANGES EVERYTHING.When a girl is educated, she’ll get married later and have a healthier family.
For every year she stays in school she’ll increase her income by at least 10%. With the money she earns, she’ll invest 90% of it back into her family. An educated girl becomes an educated woman. A woman who ensures her children go to school, just like she did.
When you educate a girl, she can change her world. And when 60 MILLION GIRLS around the world are educated? That, my friend, is a revolution.
But change doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because WE DEMAND IT. Because we stand for it. Because we DO something about it.
And this October, we’re doing something. We’re going to Do It In A Dress. The time has come for you to wear a school dress, so a girl in Africa can wear one too.
Grab two of your friends, create your team, pick a challenge and raise $240 – enough to give one girl access to education. Do your challenge in a school dress and send a girl to school.
Last year, Dave Dean ran 21km in a school dress. Deanna Hood wore a school dress everyday for a week. Chelsea Brice jumped off a building in a school dress. Roger Grant held a boxing class in a school dress.
This October, 1000 people from all over the world will wear a school dress, and together we’ll CHANGE THE LIVES of thousands of women and girls across Africa.
We know that when you educate a girl, she can change her world.
We’re doing it. WILL YOU?