Educating the World Through Educating Girls

'If You Can Educate a Girl-Child, You Can Educate the Whole World'  

In September, I had the opportunity to intern at UNESCO International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education (UNESCO INRULED), assisting in the planning of the UNESCO International Symposium on Transforming Education for Girls and Women – Beijing 2025 at Beijing Normal University. 
During this experience, I conducted in-depth research on the past UNESCO Girls and Women's Education laureates working to advance education for girls and women worldwide. My curatorial skills brought together stories and visuals that celebrate global initiatives in gender-equitable education in an accompanying exhibition, working towards tight deadlines over the space of two weeks. 
However, beyond these transferable skills gained, my heart was truly moved by the shared collective of founders and leaders of NGOs worldwide who have passionately campaigned for girls' rights to education despite persistent challenges and barriers. Through Justine Sass’s insightful presentation, I was informed that the statistics could sometimes disguise experiential data. Gender parity might have been achieved in certain countries and groups, yet harmful, entrenched attitudes might have actually made a come-back in the last few years. 
I was also particularly inspired by the fact that at the symposium, intersectionality was an issue that was foregrounded instead of only addressed in a tokenistic fashion. From providing practical employment advice for women in lower socioeconomic regions in China, to encouraging girls and women of all backgrounds in Brazil to pursue their interests in technology, I truly felt that all of these women were able to thrive in the paths they have chosen themselves, instead of being taken as another person to fit a certain 'quota' under the mainstream Anglophone society that I was used to. 
Beyond this, all of the laureates that I had the chance to chat to emphasised the importance of outreach at a community level. We are so used to a discourse of a top-down organisation to individuals, to the extent that we often take this as face-value uncritically. In fact, Deborah Rodgers had pointed out to me during a thoughtful conversation on a bus-ride, in order to truly achieve a gender-responsive education at every level, transforming the attitudes of the community that surrounds each girl-child is just as important as educating the girl herself. This links well with Cristiana Pereira Pinto's point at the symposium, where the term 'empowerment' is actually 'unempowered' in certain contexts, as what we need is to make every girl realise the power within themselves and their communities, rather than an external force. 
 
I would also like to thank Mayfield School and Somerville College, Oxford for instilling in me the true value of an inclusive education, living on the traditions of some of the earliest advocates for women's education in the world! 

Yueshi Yang, class of 2023