Individuals can make a difference in people’s lives. We see it in our work, in the lives of the children we support, in the dedication of our partner organizations, in the everyday devotion of our volunteers and in the generosity of so many supporters who have contributed time and resources to girls’ education.

60 million girls is a volunteer-run foundation that funds educational projects for vulnerable children globally. In-kind gifts have helped us to keep our administrative costs low (ideally, zero!) so that all of your donations can go towards supporting children in need.

Our vision is to help build a world where EVERY child can go to school to get a quality education – not just access to a class room, but a place where they can truly learn and get ahead. We focus on girls because they are disproportionately impacted by attitudes and social norms keeping them out of school.

More than half of all out -of-school children are girls – but that’s not the worst of it. For children already out of school, girls are much less likely than boys to ever see the inside of a classroom.

In fact, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics says that 15 million primary-aged girls will never set foot in a classroom compared to about 10 million boys.

And, as the map below shows, many young adolescent girls, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are struggling to even enroll in secondary school.

We know how transformative girls’ education can be – it saves lives by allowing women to make better choices for their families. Education gives women higher earning power, respect within their communities and hope for the future.

The support of our donors, and collaboration with great organizations, is the pathway to our success. Without you we would not have been able to raise around $200,000 every year for the last ten years to support girls’ education around the globe.

We would like to give a shout out to some organizations who have taken that extra step to make a difference in helping with special projects such as setting up our Mobile Learning Lab in Sierra Leone. We have also had tremendous in-kind support to meet our operational costs.

• Code Canada gave us permission to use their Sierra Leone e-books.

• Early Reading, the Australian creators of literacy software Fantastic Phonics, allowed us to develop an offline version of this learning tool for use on our Mobile Learning Lab.

• eXplorance, a Montreal-based learning software company, has had a team supporting us to develop the off-line version of Fantastic Phonics.

• Luna pads  donated 30 packages of feminine hygiene products for girls participating in our project in Sierra Leone.

• McGill University ISID’s Prof Sonia Laszlo helped us structure the evaluation component of our Mobile Learning Lab.

• OSU Children’s Library Fund gave us permission to use their Ghana e-books.

• California based World Possible helped us to download educational materials onto the RACHEL Plus.

• The Banque Nationale has been supporting us with no fee bank accounts.

• Bureau en Gros (Atwater/Westmount store) recently gave us a discount on the tablets, headphones and splitters that comprise the Mobile Learning Lab.

• The team at Concept9, a digital strategy agency, help us with any technical issues we have with our website.

• Google has supported us with free analytics, google adwords and a free venue for a fundraising cocktail event in 2015.

• Mazars Harel Drouin have been supporting us with free or greatly discounted accounting services since 2006.

• The Y des Femmes has been allowing us to use their meeting rooms and halls for over 8 years for our meetings and AGM.

It is with your help that we are able to keep our administrative costs at close to zero so that all of the funds we raise can go directly to our projects.

This year, we are supporting girls’ education in Tanzanzia’s Maasai Mara. We are partnering with the Stephen Lewis Foundation to fund secondary school education for a cohort of underserved and vulnerable girls in a region where most girls marry by the age of 15. These children would otherwise not have the opportunity to go to school and we are proud to help their dreams for the future.

In addition, we are continuing our two-year collaboration with CAUSE Canada to bring our Mobile Learning Lab to a remote community in Sierra Leone. This project will bring quality educational materials to children living in a region where text books, and even trained teachers, are in short supply.

If you would like to support our projects, please click here to see how you can help.