Local Students Leading a Global Project

Local Students Leading a Global Project

After attending The Alliance of Girl's Schools Leadership Conference in Sydney this year, St Margaret's College Head and Deputy Head Girls, Gussie Cohen and Lucy Tothill, were inspired to make change in their local community and further abroad. They wanted to initiate something that would enable them to maintain the friendships they formed at the conference by all taking part in something collaboratively. It was with this seed that they came up with the concept of a global charity drive for girls' education.

The number of girls that are unable to receive an education in the third world countries is alarming - one in five girls worldwide does not attend school. It is well recognised that educating and empowering young women is the best way to combat global poverty. As a student leadership team at St. Margaret's College the girls have spent the last term contacting many schools asking them to get on board with this project. There are currently a group of 34 schools from over seven countries including The Philippines,  the USA, Japan, the UK, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand involved.

Throughout the year, every school involved will be holding an event to not only create awareness for this cause, but also to raise funds.  In late October, they will combine all of the funds raised and donate as a collective group to fund the building of a school or specific facility that is needed (e.g a library) in an area where it can make the most difference.

They decided to call themselves Educating Girls Globally (more informally known as EGG) and they have a  website: http://educategirlsglobally.weebly.com .

They have also compiled to explain what they are doing and why.  This can be viewed on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QPSdbo_UnY

For St. Margaret's College's event for EGG Gussie and Lucy have organised a fundraising concert - The EGGs Factor Concert -  for the 20th of September to be held in the new auditorium at the school.

The concert features some of the finalists from this years X Factor show and is MC'd by popular TV presenter, Erin Simpson. Tickets are now on sale at Ticketek. This concert is just one event of the many that will be held across the globe to raise money for EGG, and to ultimately empower and educate girls.  Gussie says that "This concert will be a fantastic way to reunite our community after the earthquakes and most importantly, to raise money for girls who are in desperate need of an education."

For many girls in the world, an education is something they can only dream of. The goal of EGG is to turn their dream into a reality. Gussie says, "We are very excited about bringing this global aspect into the school and hope it is something that will be carried on for years to come."

ENDS

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