This post is sponsored by World Vision. The opinions in this post are 100% mine. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
Now that we’ve all shopped our socks off on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s time to remember the real reason for the season. Every Tuesday after Thanksgiving is Giving Tuesday, a day where we kick off the holiday season’s spirit of giving. If you’re like me, you have so many causes that are near and dear to your heart. Sometimes it’s hard to know WHERE to give what you are able to contribute.
This year, I’m asking you to consider making your Giving Tuesday donation to World Vision. I’m always inclined to give when someone else will match my gift, and there’s a very special match happening this again this year that make your dollars have an even bigger impact.
Keeping Girls in School
Again this year, Thirty-One Gifts is matching donations to World Vision on Giving Tuesday by providing product, up to $1 million of it, to World Vision programs around the globe. I know Thirty-One for their cool totes that my fellow soccer moms bring to the tournaments. Now I’m even more in love with this brand. What they’re doing is a big deal for these kids.
After last year’s match, World Vision was able to provide Thirty-One bags to schools in Zambia. Ladies, what happens when you have a new bag to show off? You get out there and show it off! The same is true for these young girls in Africa. Their new Thirty-One bags keep them excited about their education and about going to school each day.
The kids in the picture above are from Chipapa Primary School, which is in a remote village 2 hours outside of Lusaka, Zambia. This school has about 4 classrooms for 942 students (454 girls and 488 boys), ranging in grades from 1-9. Can you imagine a school of that size in only 4 classrooms? World Vision started supporting the school with basic supplies, clean water, and a curriculum designed to increase health, literacy, and attendance.
On a personal note, I had the opportunity to visit a school in Negril, Jamaica, about a year ago. I met this little girl, Ashley, on that trip and I have stayed in touch with her. Before she started school this year, I sent her a new backpack, shoes, and her books for schools. She was SO thankful, and so proud to go to school with her new school bag. This stuff that is back-to-school routine to some of us, is a really big deal that makes a difference in the lives of children in areas with less resources. I love that World Vision and Thirty-One Gifts is making it so easy for us to play a role in the lives of girls Ashley, and like Irene and Nelia below.
Meet Irene and Nelia
That support, along with the incentive of the Thirty-One Gifts bags which are prize possessions for these young girls, is literally is a matter of life and death: A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of 5. In July, World Vision staffer Deborah Johns visited Chipapa Primary School and met these beautiful girls, Irene (9 years old) and Nelia (8 years old). They received their “school bags” last year. “They were so proud to show them off!”
In this rural community, girls start dropping out of school around grade 5 due to reasons such as:
- The family needs her to stay home and care for their younger siblings.
- She starts menstruating and is ill-equipped to attend class due to a lack of proper hygiene and sanitation facilities, including clean water.
- She is forced into early marriage.
- She must walk too far to get water (taking up most of her day.)
My own daughter is in 6th grade, and these when I look at these statistics for girls about her age, it’s enough to really give me pause.
How You Can Help on Giving Tuesday
Today is Giving Tuesday! For the fourth consecutive year, World Vision and Thirty-One Gifts have partnered to double the impact made by donors’ Giving Tuesday gifts. Any gift given to World Vision today will be matched with a donation of product from Thirty-One Gifts up to $1,000,000, so any donation you make will have twice the impact for helping families in need around the world.
The Thirty-One Gifts school bags that Irene and Nelia were so proud to show off to Deb were given to World Vision to match generous donations on Giving Tuesday last year!
You can choose any item to donate through World Vision today, but if you want to make a direct donation to help girls stay in school, I recommend their Education for Girls fund!
Leave a Reply