Giving Compass' Take: 

• Dasmine Kennedy, Christina Kwauk, Armene Modi, María Cristina Osorio Vázquez and Adrianna Pita argue that it is necessary to provide girls not only with education, but also with receptive and enabling communities that will recognize and accept their new skill sets. 

• How can communities become engaged in education in order to better accept the learning that goes on with young girls? What cultural barriers exist to prevent acceptance of skilled women in girls in specific communities?

• This organization is empowering girls by teaching them how to protect themselves against gender-based violence. 

When it comes to global development goals, the evidence shows that nothing else has so wide-ranging a breadth of impact as educating girls. For International Women’s Day, we’re showcasing the work of the Echidna Global Scholars – leaders from NGOs and academia who work to improve learning opportunities and outcomes for girls in the developing world.

We risk leaving girls hanging when they, empowered by their new skills, are met with sometimes violent backlash by family, community members, and others. The burden of change often falls on the shoulder of girls - on young adolescent girls - who have learned life skills and now I think we should look at how the onus is now on us to figure out how to simultaneously create more receptive and enabling environments.

In this episode, Dasmine Kennedy, Armene Modi, Maria Cristina Osorio, and Damaris Parsitau talk about empowering some of the most marginalized girls in Jamaica, India, Mexico, and Kenya, and engaging their communities to invest in girls for wider social and systemic change.

Listen to the podcast on the women changing education for girls by Dasmine Kennedy, Christina Kwauk, Armene Modi, María Cristina Osorio Vázquez and Adrianna Pita at Brookings.