Girl in India learns skills for work in the beauty industry

Some of the most brilliant and successful women in the world never went to or finished school. However, they had skills and were determined to make their dreams happen.

Did you know that even though she’s an Oscar winner, Halle Berry never went to college? And the food queen Rachel Ray never had any formal culinary training. Yet she’s a best-selling author, and has her own magazine and TV shows.

Letting nothing get in girls way

Girls all around the world have a right to learn skills; they have a right to reach their full potential.

One way to help girls reach their dreams is to get them involved in skill based learning. Learning hands-on skills like: hairdressing, café management or being a health spa technician – can be just as a valuable as a book-based education.

Women in India learn embroidery skills

Success story

For instance, Plan works with girls in India, providing them with specialized job training. Girls are given the option to learn beauty therapy skills, to qualify for jobs in salons or spas.

Other Plan-supported programs have helped girls into hands-on work programs to learn skills in tailoring, welding, IT, hospitality, and farming.

Girls who complete skills training are often in a better position to apply for and get a microfinance loan to start their own business.

Hopefully, the impact will stretch to the next generation and the daughters of these young women have a better chance of attending school.

What do you want to be when you grow up? What kind of education or training will it take to get you there?

My professor once told this story to describe how microcredit works:

On his way to the office every morning, a man saw a woman selling pineapples near his work.  He ate at her stand a lot, and noticed that she worked hard for the small amount she got each day.  One day, he asked her what would make the biggest different for her business, and she replied, “If I just had $50, I could buy a second cooler and I wouldn’t have to go back home to refill mine with more stock in the middle of the day.  It takes a long time and I can’t sell pineapples during that time.”  He gave her the $50, and within a short time she had doubled her pineapple sales and paid him back the $50.  The man realized just how much difference a very small amount could make.

For a more technical answer, here’s a great wiki page on what and where the idea for Microcredit came from! Basically the way these programs work is by giving small loans to farmers or small enterprises that are easily accesible and have low interest rates and often the money that is paid back goes into community funds or lent out to other people who need them.

Hilary Clinton kind of sums it up in this quote:

“You know the proverb, Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime…Well, if you teach a woman to fish, she’ll feed the whole village”

It has been shown that women are often more successful in using microcredit programs to finance their households then men, and are more likely to share their resources among their community. The best microcredit loans go hand and hand with skill building and training programs. In Mali West Africa a Plan International program gives farmers the chance to access credit and when the farmers pay back the loan portion of the financing, the money goes into a community fund. This money is then used for more agricultural projects but also the money goes into education, health programs and other community needs.

By giving women the ability to improve their economic security we create a ripple effect. By empowering and improving the lives of women, they become teachers and advocates who pass on their knowledge and expertise to their community and to their children.