Maria Eitel, Nike Foundation (CGI 2010)
The Nike Foundation works to get girls on the international agenda and drive resources to them. The best way to do that is to prove that investment in her unleashes the girl effect.
Evidence shows that bolstering girls’ health, education and prosperity will build prospects for her family and her country’s economic prosperity. Tap her potential and the world benefits:
- Ensure she has seven or more years of education and she will marry four years later and have 2.2 fewer children.
- When 10 percent more girls go to secondary school, the country’s economy grows by 3 percent.
- When an educated girl earns income she reinvests 90 percent in her family, compared to 35 percent for a boy.
- When women have the skills to participate in public life, government corruption declines.
Fighting poverty has no easy answers, but there are unturned stones. The girl effect is a new hope, an investment with exponential returns. The challenge? Working together to set that cycle in motion.
The Nike Foundation goal is to innovate for and with girls, creating conditions that support and value girls during their adolescent years before it’s too late for them — and for us. Adolescence is difficult for anyone. But for the 600 million adolescent girls in the developing world today, stepping into womanhood is harsh and abrupt.
