One of the most frustrating realities in the world of educating women and girls is how hard it is to find them jobs. That is why AIL educates and hires local women. Our community health workers go from our certification programs to working with AIL and international NGO’s to distribute vaccines and literature on nutrition and health. They volunteer services for our clinics and help to protect families from diseases. Training women only helps the community if they can access the job market. If they can use the banking system. Study after study shows, one just released in May, that we can educate women until they can’t possibly be educated any more, but if they can’t find work it won’t matter. We have to change ideas along with educate.
Not just in Afghanistan, but all over the world, women with advanced degrees cannot contribute to their nation. School girls are left at home because people don’t understand reproductive health. Because the family needs money and they can’t afford to send the child to school, and lose the income from her working in mines or a home. We must work with nations to get them to accept women as valuable members of the economy. When a woman earns money, she spends that money in her local area. For every five dollars a woman earns, four of it goes to her neighbors. As the neighbors earn more money, they spend it locally two. Empowering one women will eventually empower a village.
Why should the world hire women?
The world has so many educated women, sitting at home. This is wasteful. Not only wasteful, its harmful. The world needs workers, and our women sit home. We, living in our comfortable nations, have lost sight of this fact. It is no longer the case, for the most part, that Western nations can support their neighbors through spending. In areas like Afghanistan, this isn’t true. Educate, then hire women. This is how we build a foundation of stability.
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