Summer 2023
Message from our President
In the past year, 60 million girls has put climate change front and centre in what we do. We worked with an amazing team of Masters students from McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy to help us define and include climate action in girls’ education. Their 6 months of intensive work on this project enabled us to do in the past year what would have easily taken us at least two years or more to complete.
We know that gender equality is what will enable us to find permanent solutions to the climate crisis because all women and girls need to be part of the equation. We need their intelligence, their agency, their knowledge and skills, their perspective to tackle climate change in all its forms, all at once. There is no one magical solution except to rethink the way we all live – and it will have to be in harmony with the planet within the boundaries of what the planet is able to provide.
Through our projects, it is our goal to provide more specific and timely information not only on just what climate change is, but what can be done in their very specific communities to mitigate the impact and build their resilience: whether it be using local sustainable building materials in their homes and schools and community buildings to make them more resilient to climate impacts, regenerative agriculture practices to improve the quality and output of the soil in farms, better land and water management in case of flooding or droughts, preserving/replanting (mangrove) forests and trees, clean fuel cooking, new crop types more resistant to changing weather patterns and more.
As always, it is through our amazing partnerships that we can meet our objectives. Our R&D team now numbers 12 people looking specifically into climate action content and information and collaboration that we can share with you.
We want to enhance this conversation with our 2024 Showcase event by inviting all our partners and our newer collaborators to understand just how 60 million girls can move climate action forward most effectively through the girls’ education projects we fund.
Wanda Bedard
Partners in Action
Many of our partners have been busy studying the multiplier effects of girls’ education, and the intersection of education and climate resilience. Here is a selection of some of their studies and reports demonstrating great work going on this field.
CAMFED: Climate Resilience through Education
Christina Kwauk, PhD, a gender, education and climate change specialist recently published a report on Camfed’s bespoke climate education program, developed to support girls’ education in their partner schools. This 2023 report found that the resulting curriculum was contextually relevant, practical and sensitive to the needs of girls.
Change for Children: Toward Gender-Transformative and Intercultural Education for Action on Climate Change
This 2023 Research Study examined the intersection of these three factors; climate change, gender, and education, in an Indigenous community context. Indigenous communities are recognized to be at disproportionately higher risk for the negative impacts of climate change, and, at the same time, Indigenous knowledge is increasingly acknowledged as an essential and valuable tool for environmental care and sustainable communities.
Code: The impact of MLL’s on Accelerated Learning and Life Skills on overage primary school girls in Liberia
This 2023 Evaluative Study demonstrated that Mobile Learning Labs ( MLLs) showed the potential to positively influence rates of grade-level promotion, as well as delivered statistically significant differences between the MLL and no-MLL access groups regarding knowledge of sexual health and the development of self-esteem.
Updates from our R&D Team
Over the past year, the R&D team at 60 million girls has taken on the challenge of researching the important nexus of girls’ education and climate action. We began by reviewing relevant articles included in the Max Bell Policy Report 2022 to support our understanding and further our research process.
Our focus is on three key areas:
- Finding relevant offline content for the RACHEL,
- Connecting with other international NGOs working in the climate change space to learn of best practices, and
- Gathering important global information related to climate action in architecture, water, clean cooking, deforestation, sexual health, reproductive rights/menstrual hygiene and youth activism.
We would love to hear from you should you have any content/information in any of these areas that we can further share with NGOs worldwide. You can reach us here: info@60milliongirls.org.
2023 Funded Projects
This year, 60 million girls is funding three projects that will take place in 2024. Our website lists the details of each project, but here is a brief summary, with links to the full details of these supported projects.
Liberia
Girls Accelerated Learning Initiative
This Code Canada Project will enable over age primary school girls to rapidly accelerate their learning for them to catch up to their proper age cohort and prevent dropping out of school.
Sierra Leone
We Matter
This Cause Canada Project will support vulnerable out-of-school girls to return to the formal educational system thanks to an intensive accelerated learning program. It will also target girls living with disabilities by providing them with special mentoring to get back into school.
Guatemala & Nicaragua
Education for Climate Responsiveness
This Change for Children Project will develop a climate action teacher training MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) including climate change educational content in Spanish and in two indigenous languages.
Recent News
INEE (Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies) Community of Practice
The INEE Community of Practice (CoP) is an Online Platform that facilitates peer-to-peer communication and moderated discussions on a full range of education- in-emergencies topics in many languages.
KIX (Knowledge Innovation Exchange) call for proposals: Achieving gender equality and social inclusion at school
Research Grants are available, ranging from $300K CDN to $2.5M CDN, from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to support gender inclusive programming and scaling of educational projects.
Save the Date
60 million girls Showcase event: February 20th 2024
Please mark this date in your calendars for a virtual event to learn and share knowledge of best practices to integrate climate action into girls’ education programs. We will also discuss recent updates and news on girls’ education innovations including the latest research/ evaluation and ideas related to the Mobile Learning Lab. Additional details will be sent to you in the fall of 2023.