If I Was Given 100 Million Dollars

Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom. This is a

quote by Oprah Winfrey. I believe that this is the perfect quote for how I will be
spending the money that I get from the UN. I plan on spending the money equally
between two charities. Both are charities that have to deal with helping girls get an
education. Which I will get more into detail about what each charity will do with the
money that they will receive.
The first charity that I will be giving 50 Million dollars to, is called One Girl.
This is a charity thats main focus is helping girls get an education. They have two
main issues that they focus on. The first being helping women get sanitary pads,
this is an important issue because before this organization stepped in, women in
Sierra Leon were using unconventional items for pads and there were a lot of
complications from doing so. Also girls that had their periods were missing up to a
week every month of school. So this subject is closely related to education because
if those girls are missing school then they are falling behind and even dropping out.
The second issue they focus on is the topic of scholarships. The One Girl
organizations provides girls in Sierra Leone and Uganda with scholarships. The
scholarships provide a girl with everything she needs for school: books, bag,
uniform, school fees, shoes, and more. So far they have provided 326 scholarships,
in 25 schools, in 16 communities. This is something that these girls need, on
average it takes $25 dollars a month to send a girl to school in Uganda and Sierra
Leon. This is important because girls with 8 years of education are 4 times less
likely to be married as children. Also, every year a girl stays in school, her income
will increase by at least 10-20 percent. I found both of these statistics on the One

Girl website. I feel that this is something that needs urgency because girls all over
Africa are being left behind on the education train. I found statistics online from the
Left Behind website. Which is a website that talks about how girls in Africa and Asia
are being left behind. I found some scary statistics, that across the region of Africa
28 million young and adolescent girls are out of school and many may never step
foot in a classroom (Left Behind). Also, in Africa there is still a large gender gap in
children enrolled in primary schools. These are just some of the facts that show why
this is an urgent subject that girls need to be educated and that they need our help.
For this charity I can only view two challenges that will arise from the charity.
The first problem that I can see is girls not even having the option to go to school.
This I can relate back to the videos we watched from the Girl Rising. Where the
girls had to work and do chores instead of go to school. I could possibly see that
being a problem. And I am not sure how to solve this, maybe giving money to the
family for each girl they let go to school. But, how can we be certain that they
money will be going toward to correct things. The second challenge that I could see
is the challenge of the sanitary pads. I feel that there might be some women that
are against them and not be willing to use them. A way to solve this would be get
someone to educate them and help them understand why this is a good thing.
Other than those two challenges I do not see any major challenges that should arise
from helping this charity. By helping these girls get an education, this will help the
surrounding communities because when a girl gets an education she will invest that
knowledge and even money back into her community, and back into her family. Also
this will help the communities because the women that are selling the sanitary pads
are starting small businesses and that is helping everyone in the community. So this
is the first charity that I would give money to, the second one is similar but focuses

more on literacy of children around the world and on getting gender equality in
education.
The second charity that I would give the other 50 million dollars to would be
the Room to Read Organization. The main part of this charity is the literacy part.
Their room to read literacy program addresses three main areas, which are teacher
training and support, reading materials, and learning spaces. The teacher training
and support is all about giving teachers the right training in order to be able to
support their students. They have a phonics bases instructional design that helps
children learn to read words and write them. Then the reading material are a huge
part because if the students have the right books for their skill level they are not
going to be able to engage with the books, and keep on learning. That is why they
have donated 15,641,734 books to different schools. Also, they have established
17,543 libraries for children to enjoy. Finally, is the having a safe learning space, this
is something that every child needs, they need an appropriate environment for
learning, free from hazards, crowding and distractions. The other program that they
have is their focus on girls education. They help girls by supporting the girls that
are not likely to graduate and helping them develop the skills that they need to
decide on key life decisions. Some of the main ways that they support are through
material support, in the form of a new bike, clean uniforms, or a room in a boarding
house closer to school so that parents dont have to make the decision between
putting food on the table or sending their child to school.
I believe that literacy is an urgent issue because 114.5 million people are
illiterate. And that is only youth ages. The numbers for adult are even more
staggering with 756 million people being illiterate. Being illiterate puts a very large
damper on any goals that that child ever had of getting. There is no way that they

child is every going to get out of the small town that they are living in, or get out of
poverty. In getting more children to be literate, I dont see many challenges in this,
the only one I can see is the same challenge as before, where the child would have
to stay home and work and is needed to take care of the home or make money for
the family. Also, the way that communities would be impacted would be that when
girls and boys are able to read and are educated they will pass that learning down
to their own children or even on to young siblings, so that would make the
community as a whole get more education.
So for how the money would be spent in each charity. Each would get 50
million dollars. In the One Girl organization the money would go towards
scholarships for the girls and on pads for the women and girls of each community. I
would like 12.5 million to go towards supplying the women with pads, and with each
pack of pads only costing $1.00 to make that is a lot of sanitary pads to keep
women and girls safe and healthy. Then I would like the other 37.5 million to go
towards the scholarships for the girls. So its costs $300 for a girl to go to school for
one year and the average girl get s 8 years of schooling, so that a total of $2,400 for
a girl to go to school for a lifetime. So with 37.5 million dollars they could send
roughly 15,000 girls to school. I think that this is a great start and they could even
stretch farther and start in other communities in Africa. So for in the Room to Read
charity I would like the money to be slit up very similarity to the one girl way. That
being 12.5 million be designated to the use of girls education and have 37.5 million
go towards to use of helping children read. I would like them to build a library in
every community that they have their foot in and that it be completely stocked with
books. Its costs $20,000 to build a stand-alone library and $5,000 to build a
classroom library. I would like to see more classroom libraries be build but, if there

are no classrooms on a community then I would like to see a stand-alone library

built. So if they were to just build classroom libraries they would build roughly 7,000
libraries! But I am not sure what there is more of a need for. Also the same goes for
the 12.5 million for girls education, it will be spent almost the same way as for the
pervious charity, that it costs $2,500 to send a girl to school for 10 years, so they
would send 5,000 girls to school for a lifetime. This may seem like a lot but it is only
the tip of the iceberg. There are so many girls that need to go to school and so
many children that need to learn to read.
This research has really made me think twice about how lucky I am to live in
a place where my family doesnt have to think twice about sending me to school,
and that it was just assumed that I would learn to read. This really makes me take
my education for granted and be very thankful for it, especially since I am a female.

Works Cited
One Girl Organization
http://www.onegirl.org.au/
Room to Read Organization
http://www.roomtoread.org/
Left Behind Girls Education in Africa
http://www.uis.unesco.org/_LAYOUTS/UNESCO/no-girl-leftbehind/index.html#cover-intro-0