STAND UP FOR GIRLS: INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL, SEPTEMBER 22

Stand Up for Girls on September 22, the International Day of the Girl

Two thirds of all the world's illiterate people are women. On September 22, we will stand up for girls and their right to go to school and to learn to read and write. Let us join together to launch a campaign to advocate for a transformative new era in girls' education.

Every girl has the right to a quality education that will ensure she has a lifelong way to protect herself, advocate for herself, learn what she wants to know and be who she wants to be. Every girl has the right to read and write words that will change her, and to write and tell stories to change the world.

Stand Up for Girls in 3 Easy Ways:

1) Spread the word. Use the Stand Up for Girls Avatar on all of your social media pages from now until September 22. "Like" and "Follow" LitWorld on Facebook and Twitter, and update your status to spread the word about Stand Up for Girls. Sample status updates:

Facebook: Join @litworld and me in the rally for Girls Education on the International Day of the Girl Sept 22! I stand up for girls and believe in giving them a quality education so that they can tell the stories that will change the world. Join the movement: litworld.org

Twitter: Join @litworldsays and me to stand up for girls' education on the Intl Day of the Girl Sept 22: http://litworld.org #standupforgirls

2) Stand Up. At noon your time on September 22, take ten seconds to physically stand up wherever you are (wear the Stand Up for Girls Badge- posted below!) to give recognition and awareness to the movement. Take a photo of yourself standing up for girls and post it on LitWorld's Facebook wall.

3) March. Organize a Stand Up for Girls March or event in your classroom, workplace or neighborhood on September 22 to bring awareness to your community about the urgency of providing girls with a quality education.

Contact LitWorld for translations of this information, including alternate versions of the Avatar and Badge images.

litworld.org
facebook.com/litworld
twitter.com/litworldsays

By standing up for all girls everywhere, we invest in our future.

The Stand Up for Girls Rally is cosponsored by The Millennium Cities Initiative and Connect to Learn, projects of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Millennium Cities and Villages across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia Initiatives with Ashta no Kai and Arpana in India, and The Children of Kibera Foundation in Kenya.

Pam Allyn on the New York Times

As the new school year begins, Pam reflected on the experience of sending her daughter Charlotte off to college. Her blog piece was featured on the New York Times. Read the full article HERE.

"As I think about my daughter leaving for college, I have some great hopes for her. I hope she gets that strong look around her mouth quite often, whenever something doesn’t seem right or feel right, I hope she will stand solidly for things that matter to her, those acts of disobedience that lead to a better world or a more complete life. I hope that she will find many ways to keep finding ways to create stories, stories that resonate for her and build the world of her imagination, that this imagination is what will help her learn boldly, live deeply and rise, always rise."

RADIO: Pam Allyn Shares Her Work on Daybreak USA

Daybreak USA is a radio station based in Dallas, Texas. Hosted by Scott West, Pam appears on the show to share her own acronym for the word "READ". Listen in here:

Pam Allyn's New Article on HuffPost: A New Girls' and Women's Literacy Empowerment Movement

Pam Allyn has a new article up on the Huffington Post speaking about her passionate fight to create a new world for girls through the LitClubs work:

These LitClubs, they feel like life and death work to me now. Why? The LitClubs are showing the girls that there is something to live for, that they can come to school instead of trading their bodies for food and potentially contracting the same disease that has killed many of their family members. And the LitClubs are showing the world that education, in time, is like vaccinating a child against poverty. That we are racing time to make this happen because every day a child misses school and begins to fade out, we lose part of the next generation.

A story: One of our LitClub members is the child head of a household of many children, her siblings; both her parents died of AIDS. She frequently visits the lake near her school because the men down there will give her scraps of food in the morning; in exchange for the use of her body. She goes to school after this, and then home to collect water from a distance, cook, clean and care for her many younger siblings, and go to bed in the pitch black, sleeping on the floor in one room with all her siblings breathing quietly beside her. She has told me her life is hard, but she was the first to offer me her only biscuit at the snack time we provided (it was her only meal of the day). She said to me the other day: "The Girls Club is the first place I ever felt what it must be like to be happy. I love coming here and I wish I could be here with everyone singing and reading always."

I love the line "I am here for you" I found recently in a book of Buddhist meditations. I hope the LitClubs can be a way for us all to be here for her, for the girls to be here for each other, for us to be here for them, and through this, we all exist transactionally: We are here for each other.

Read the full article here.

Pam Allyn's Top 5 Reasons Writing is Important for Kids on NBC's Education Nation

1. Writing builds confidence in a child’s sense of herself and her voice.

2. Writing helps kids create and strengthen their identities.

3. Writing fosters a child’s emotional growth and gives him coping skills for dealing with life’s many highs and lows.

4. Writing helps kids develop critical thinking skills - it helps them understand and communicate complicated ideas.

5. Writing leads to guaranteed improvement in academic achievement.

As humans, we all want to belong and feel connected - it is in our very nature as social beings. We want to be able to share our stories meaningfully and to hear other people’s stories in a way that resonates with our own lives.

Language is the tool that brings us together. Giving our children the gift of expression at a young age sets them on a path of purpose, intention and engagement. Writing will give your child a sense of herself as a person in the world and will give her a voice that she will be proud to share with the world. A study done by the U.S. Department of Education shows that writing is one of the best ways to not only improve your child’s academic progress in school, but to also improve your child’s self-expression and self-reliance. Two other studies show that writing improves children’s academic progress by helping them learn and retain new material better and - when done frequently both at home and at school - by building their confidence in their writing and communication abilities.

Writing will also bring you closer to your child because it will give you access to his wonderfully complex inner life. The human desire to connect through language begins with a baby’s first smile. It is never too early to start your child down the path of a writer’s life. By engaging in the act of writing, we are engaging in the valuing of life, valuing one another, and valuing the precious moments we share.

Writing opens up an enormous world of possibilities for people of all ages and occupations. No matter the age, people are fascinated, consumed, enchanted and delighted by the power of the written word. Children are especially drawn to the incredible power of stories and words, and they are already so naturally living a writer’s life - one of observation, wonder, memory and imagination. A life where, by simply writing something down, you can make it happen.

This is a sentiment that we simply must encourage, nurture and allow to take root in our children so that it will become a lifelong conviction. By having access to the written word, your child grows up with a sense that he has and will always have something to say that could change people’s minds. There is great power in being able to say exactly what you mean and seeing that people understand and are engaged by your words and ideas.

Read at educationnation.com...

LitWorld in the Field: Mothers University, Magic Birds & Live Orange

All over the world, people seek out stories and words to comfort, inspire, inform and protect. In New York, tomorrow July 13, 2011, LitWorld hosts our second Live Orange Webcast to celebrate the superpowers of literacy to bind us, honor our inner selves and find each other across time zones.

Our beloved friend and inspiration spiritchild and his amazing band of hip hop leaders extraordinaire will call us together to teach this time. Be with LitWorld for this special event.

RSVP, see more details, and tune in LIVE tomorrow at 2pm EST at facebook.com/litworld.

I am far away right now, in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya with our LitWorld Delegation working with the Children of Kibera Foundation to strengthen local teachers and community members as literacy leaders so that all children and all people can partake in the wildly miraculous world that is the world of words. I am thinking of you. I am thinking of how the world is in need of justice and fairness. I think this can only happen if we fortify the world for the world's children. Like vitamins in milk and fresh air itself, literacy pumps power into minds and bodies.

Read more from Pam and the team on the LitCorps Ambassador Blog...

Pam Allyn on LitWorld's Travels to Kenya on CBS Radio

Click here and listen to a segment with LitWorld's Executive Director Pam Allyn on LitWorld's work with our Hub site the Red Rose School in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya, and our partnership Children of Kibera Foundation.