The opposite of the formal economy, the informal economy is defined as “is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government, and is not included in that government’s Gross National Product (GNP).” One example is that if you sell your old skateboard to your friend, its part of the informal economy, but [...]

Here on the East side of the Atlantic (I’m in Europe for a bit this summer), everyone’s got World Cup fever.  One of my favourite things is being in Toronto during events like this, because it is so diverse that you can see every competing country represented with their colours and flags.  This year I’m [...]

We talked before about the basics of this summer’s G8 to be held in Ontario. But what does this mean for girls? A lot. Stephen Harper has decided to focus on maternal health during this summer’s summit (say that 10 times fast!): Every year, nearly nine million children and 500,000 women die from causes we [...]

What does it mean when something is “On the Agenda”? This little piece of jargon comes up allllll the time. You’ll hear activists saying, “we need to get that on the agenda” and politicians saying, “it’s certainly on my agenda.” Basically, if its on the agenda, it means its gonna get talked about. Imagine you [...]

So, the G8 and G20 summits are coming to Canada and I thought I would give you a little heads up on what all the fuss is about. The terms G8 and G20 refer to two groups of countries. The Group of 8 (G8) includes France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, [...]

Learn about how healthy adolescent girls lead to healthy communities, and why schools means most to teen girls on this sweet website that is chock-a-block with information about how changing lives of girls can change the world.  And best of all they lay out 10 actions for making that change: Give adolescent girls an officially [...]

For me, Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with friends and Twitter helps me keep up to date on the latest news.  And sometimes people complain that I’m on my Blackberry too much.  But for girls around the world, it seems that information technology can offer girls and young women new pathways [...]

One of the coolest things about being the blogger for Because I am a Girl is that I get to hear about girls have taken the thing that they are passionate about, and used it to raise awareness and money for girls around the world that face discrimination, poverty, and insecurity. This week’s girl that [...]

I just found this MINDBLOWING online resource for women.  Its a museum, but its online, and totally relevant to RIGHT NOW.  I would recommend checking out their most recent exhibit called Economica: Women and the Global Economy.  Sigh.  So much to learn, so little time.

Warning: heavy topic. But one that needs to be talked about. Gendercide is defined as “gender-selective mass killing.” In many cases, gendercide involves the deliberate killing of women and girls. In an in-depth article in The Economist a couple of months ago, the subheading reads, “Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100 million girls have [...]