Because I Am a Girl is an international movement by the aid organization

Plan A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. ...

. The campaign is made to address the issue of

gender discrimination Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...

around the world."Discrimination against girls 'still deeply entrenched'", ''The Independent'', 15 May 2007, p. 1 The goal of the campaign is to promote the rights of

girl A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.c ...

s and bring millions of girls out of poverty around the world. It is part of the organization's broader international development work. The campaign focuses on lack of equality faced by girls in developing countries and promotes projects to improve opportunities for girls in

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, medical care, family planning, legal rights, and other areas.

Campaign goals

Plan International states that the campaign has several current goals, which in 2012 included: *Girls' education to be prioritised by world leaders *Girls' completion of a quality

secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final pha ...

to be a major focus of international action *Funding for girls' education to be increased *An end to

child marriage Child marriage is a marriage or similar union, formal or informal, between a child under a certain age – typically 18 years – and an adult or another child. * * * * The vast majority of child marriages are between a female child and a mal ...

*An end to

gender-based violence Gender-related violence or gender-based violence includes any kind of violence directed against people due to their gender or gender identification. Types of gender-related violence include: * Violence against women (sometimes referred to simply a ...

in and around schools Plan has targeted 4 million girls through direct programs and projects, and has the goal of reaching 40 million girls and boys indirectly through gender programs. Plan has a further goal of positively impacting 400 million girls through lobbying for governmental policy changes.

Origins

The campaign began shortly after Plan International published its first annual report on the state of the world's girls in May 2007, titled "Because I am a Girl". The widely cited report, principally written by Nikki Van der Gaag, compiled and analyzed research into the extent of discrimination against girls worldwide and in the developing world in particular. Violence against girls, forced child marriage, endemic poverty, and many other topics were examined. Plan International developed the Because I am a Girl campaign as an ongoing initiative to launch projects aimed at remedying the challenges faced by girls.

Annual reports

Each year, a ''Because I Am a Girl'' report is released by Plan as an update on the state of the world's girls. The report has been produced annually since 2007. Researchers for the report visit girls throughout the world and summarize their findings in the report. Reports released since 2007: * 2007: The State of World's Girls * 2008: In the Shadows of War * 2009: Girls in the Global Economy: Adding It All Up * 2010: Digital and Urban Frontiers * 2011: Because I am a Girl: So What About the Boys? * 2012: Because I am a Girl: Learning for Life * 2013: In Double Jeopardy: Adolescent Girls and Disasters * 2014: Pathways to Power: Creating Sustainable Change for Adolescent Girls * 2015: The Unfinished Business of Girls' Rights

International activity

Plan International has raised awareness of its campaign through innovative marketing, including a highly visible bus stop poster campaign. Plan International also initiated the

International Day of the Girl Child International Day of the Girl Child is an international observance day declared by the United Nations; it is also called the Day of Girls and the International Day of the Girl. October 11, 2012, was the first Day of the Girl Child. The observatio ...

, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as an annual observance day. The inaugural

was October 11, 2012. Plan International reached 1.1 million kids in the late '90s and as of 2018 it has reached greatly increased to 56.5 million children in more than 50 countries. Plan International's goal is to sponsor kids in impoverished countries so that they have a better chance in life. Plan International USA seeks to make sure that women and girls can manage their menstruation. There is a lot of stigma and one of the main goals is to provide more knowledge about menstruation to both females and males. Plan also works towards providing more access to sanitary products. #GirlsTakeover is a call for action on International Day of the Girl. In the U.S executive directors of UNICEF, UNWomen, and UNFPA were a part of the takeover and advocated for the equality of girls. More than a thousand takeovers were held in 60 different countries all over the world.

Canada

Plan Canada Plan International Canada is the Canadian arm of the relief organization Plan International, a not-for-profit global movement that promotes social justice for youth and their families in more than 65 developing countries. Plan International an ...

's ''Because I Am a Girl'' initiative created a petition to the Canadian government for a National Day of the Girl. This petition was designed to lobby the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

for an International Day of the Girl, initially to be observed on September 22. The stated goal was to bring international attention and

awareness Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. More specifically, it is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events. Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some infor ...

on the issue of

gender inequality Gender inequality is the social phenomenon in which men and women are not treated equally. The treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or cultural norms prevalent in the society. Some of these distinctions are empi ...

and allow for girls to obtain their rights. Canada sponsored a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly to observe the

each October 11, a resolution that the UN voted to adopt.

United Kingdom

In a 2009 campaign, celebrity women donated pictures from their childhood, discussed women who inspired them, and gave their thoughts on

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

. In 2014, a school girl wrote a poem about forced marriage after discovering the Because I Am a Girl campaign. Her poem was published online by

Plan UK Plan International UK is the UK branch of the global children's rights non-profit organisation Plan International. Plan UK which works to advance equality for girls all over the world through sustainable development and humanitarian response ac ...

United States

In 2015,

Mo'ne Davis Mo'ne Ikea Davis (born June 24, 2001) is an American former Little League Baseball pitcher and current Hampton University softball player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was one of two girls who played in the 2014 Little League World Series ...

teamed up with the brand M4D3 (Make A Difference Everyday) to design a line of sneakers for girls, with some of the proceeds going toward the Plan International's Because I Am a Girl campaign.

References

External links

Plan International Because I Am a Girl campaign

Plan Canada's Because I Am a Girl campaign

Plan Italia Because I am a Girl

Plan Australia's Because I Am A Girl Campaign
{{DEFAULTSORT:Because I Am A Girl (Campaign) International development agencies Feminist organisations in England Human rights organisations based in the United Kingdom