OCTOBER 2022: IT TAKES A VILLAGE...

It takes a village to raise a child, says a well-known African proverb. We believe it also takes a village to create most kinds of meaningful change, including improving access to education for girls around the world. Today, October 11, on the 10th anniversary of the United Nation's International Day of the Girl Child, we celebrate the new opportunities many Maasai girls now have in the Loita Hills. Thanks to the village of support we receive from all of you, our staff in Kenya have enrolled over 600 students into primary schools since they reopened in 2021–– and continue to follow up with their families to ensure they can stay in the classroom. And thanks to four new secondary schools you've helped us launch with communities the past two years, these students will now have the opportunity to continue their educations as they age into high school. These schools will continue to be game-changing for countless more children long into the future.
 

...and a Village to Win Awards, too.

This month, as we celebrate girls' gains, we are also celebrating a recent honor bestowed on our director, Kayce Anderson. On October 27, Kayce will be honored as one of two recipients of the University of Colorado's 2022 George Norlin Award for her work founding and leading For the Good. The lifetime achievement award recognizes CU alumni who have demonstrated a commitment to excellence and a dedication to the betterment of society. Kayce shares this prestigious honor with a select group of individuals including a Mercury Seven astronaut, a 10-time Grammy winning jazz musician, a former Supreme Court Justice, and a beloved physician who was among the first Americans to summit Mount Everest.

Though deeply honored by an award bestowed on such a small handful, Kayce is also conflicted about being singled out; she believes it is only thanks to a vast village of support and privilege that she’s in a position to receive this type of honor at all. It was, in fact, awareness of the ways that access and privilege create the kinds of opportunity that often lead to such recognition for some while creating nearly insurmountable barriers for others that motivated her to start For the Good back in 2014. Our entire raison d'être is working to reduce the inequities that create those barriers so that other girls around the world might also, in the future, have similar opportunities to realize their agency, dreams, and potential.

"Whether they choose to pursue a career or lead a traditional life, the lives of girls who are able to have an education will be fundamentally different from those girls that had no choice because they had no schooling," says Anderson. "Being a part of that sliding door that shifts the trajectory of lives is incredibly humbling and rewarding. Someday I would love to see a future where every girl around the world can receive the support, education and opportunities that will let her make a powerful impact in this world –– and then be recognized for her effort with the kind of honor which CU has just bestowed on me. Ultimately, that is the future For the Good is working to create.”