t’s well understood that education is key to creating opportunities and economic empowerment for women and girls. We also know that ensuring there are classrooms for girls to sit in and teachers to teach them is not enough. Even where decent educational funding and structures are in place, women face complex barriers—from external societal and cultural forces to more subtle internal expectations and beliefs.
As the first in my family, my village, and my clan to graduate from university, I am intimately familiar with the impact education has on quality of life. To unlock girls’ dreams requires more than policies, funding, and practical training. For girls to fulfill their potential, they also need local teachers and other advocates who actively fight for them. They need leaders who create environments that facilitate mindset shifts and who become allies and champions.
At the age of 8 I woke up to the importance of education. Up to that point, I was not just an underachiever, I was a non-achiever. Uninterested in school and placing near the bottom every year in a class of 50, I was following the same path as my two older siblings, one pregnant at 13 and both dropping out of school in their teens. My family was poor, and I had one oversized yellow dress that I would wear everywhere. Family gatherings were a nightmare, and at one particular family wedding, my richer cousins made fun of this shabby dress. I was suddenly conscious of being poor and what that meant. Education, it seemed to me, was perhaps the only escape available. For the first time, I felt some ambition! But how would I get an education when my parents had almost no education or money themselves, my school was mediocre, and there was no clear path to follow?
A single teacher made the difference. I had a teacher, I fondly call her “Aunty Mary”, who became my champion and my advocate. Somehow, she created a space where I could open up to her about my shame and sadness over the yellow dress and how things were at home. Perhaps she saw my hopelessness. She looked at me and insisted that I could be anything I wanted to be. She reminded me that I drew beautifully and was a wonderful actress, that I was capable and energetic. Her belief in me stirred hope, and I was thrilled to have someone I looked up to paying attention to me. I became eager to impress her and prove that she was right. I started to work so hard that by the time I left primary school I was one of the top five students in the grade. Thanks to Aunty Mary’s advocacy and championship, I not only came to believe in myself, but ended up receiving a scholarship to boarding school. This completely changed the trajectory of my life. Without her, my nascent ambition would have hit a wall.
Aunty Mary gave me the gift of a changed mindset. She allowed me not just to believe in myself, but to embrace ambition. For women in Africa as well as around the globe, our mindset still directs us to be subservient to others and to the societal expectations put upon us. In most developing countries, cultures raise us to be caregivers, to look after the home, cook, clean, collect firewood for the home. In fact, we are meant to stay home bound. You can’t say no. You must not put your needs first.
For young people, it matters who is teaching you about such mindset changes. Therefore, it is crucial to have allies and champions in one’s community to encourage and empower girls and younger women. Change is a community effort, particularly for women who tend to work and communicate in groups. Change and actual support require engagement with actual people, not just books or lectures or YouTube videos.
If better mindsets can be transmitted from respected sources to influence the hearts and minds of young women, then leadership is the bridge that translates these changing mindsets into action. Fostering leadership means developing a sense of agency and critical thinking, which in turn empowers others to take initiative and act for change. We need to support students to exert leadership, and it must be fostered at every level—from the home to schools to government offices.
Aunty Mary was a leader who took it upon herself to teach one young girl she had more potential than she’d ever before believed. Girls need trusted advocates like Aunty Mary who are invested in their success who are willing to engage in expanding their mindsets. This advocacy is what allows all other investments in girls' education to pay off. This is what it takes to truly transform women's lives so that they can overcome barriers, fulfill their potential, and gain and keep economic and political power.
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How to Change Mindsets and Empower Young Women and Girls
Photo courtesy of Teach for All.
March 8, 2022
While education is key to creating opportunities and economic empowerment for young women, in cultures where women's options are often limited it is crucial to have champions and advocates who look to help young girls aspire to more, writes Teach For All's Vongai Nyahunzvi.
I
t’s well understood that education is key to creating opportunities and economic empowerment for women and girls. We also know that ensuring there are classrooms for girls to sit in and teachers to teach them is not enough. Even where decent educational funding and structures are in place, women face complex barriers—from external societal and cultural forces to more subtle internal expectations and beliefs.
As the first in my family, my village, and my clan to graduate from university, I am intimately familiar with the impact education has on quality of life. To unlock girls’ dreams requires more than policies, funding, and practical training. For girls to fulfill their potential, they also need local teachers and other advocates who actively fight for them. They need leaders who create environments that facilitate mindset shifts and who become allies and champions.
At the age of 8 I woke up to the importance of education. Up to that point, I was not just an underachiever, I was a non-achiever. Uninterested in school and placing near the bottom every year in a class of 50, I was following the same path as my two older siblings, one pregnant at 13 and both dropping out of school in their teens. My family was poor, and I had one oversized yellow dress that I would wear everywhere. Family gatherings were a nightmare, and at one particular family wedding, my richer cousins made fun of this shabby dress. I was suddenly conscious of being poor and what that meant. Education, it seemed to me, was perhaps the only escape available. For the first time, I felt some ambition! But how would I get an education when my parents had almost no education or money themselves, my school was mediocre, and there was no clear path to follow?
A single teacher made the difference. I had a teacher, I fondly call her “Aunty Mary”, who became my champion and my advocate. Somehow, she created a space where I could open up to her about my shame and sadness over the yellow dress and how things were at home. Perhaps she saw my hopelessness. She looked at me and insisted that I could be anything I wanted to be. She reminded me that I drew beautifully and was a wonderful actress, that I was capable and energetic. Her belief in me stirred hope, and I was thrilled to have someone I looked up to paying attention to me. I became eager to impress her and prove that she was right. I started to work so hard that by the time I left primary school I was one of the top five students in the grade. Thanks to Aunty Mary’s advocacy and championship, I not only came to believe in myself, but ended up receiving a scholarship to boarding school. This completely changed the trajectory of my life. Without her, my nascent ambition would have hit a wall.
Aunty Mary gave me the gift of a changed mindset. She allowed me not just to believe in myself, but to embrace ambition. For women in Africa as well as around the globe, our mindset still directs us to be subservient to others and to the societal expectations put upon us. In most developing countries, cultures raise us to be caregivers, to look after the home, cook, clean, collect firewood for the home. In fact, we are meant to stay home bound. You can’t say no. You must not put your needs first.
For young people, it matters who is teaching you about such mindset changes. Therefore, it is crucial to have allies and champions in one’s community to encourage and empower girls and younger women. Change is a community effort, particularly for women who tend to work and communicate in groups. Change and actual support require engagement with actual people, not just books or lectures or YouTube videos.
If better mindsets can be transmitted from respected sources to influence the hearts and minds of young women, then leadership is the bridge that translates these changing mindsets into action. Fostering leadership means developing a sense of agency and critical thinking, which in turn empowers others to take initiative and act for change. We need to support students to exert leadership, and it must be fostered at every level—from the home to schools to government offices.
Aunty Mary was a leader who took it upon herself to teach one young girl she had more potential than she’d ever before believed. Girls need trusted advocates like Aunty Mary who are invested in their success who are willing to engage in expanding their mindsets. This advocacy is what allows all other investments in girls' education to pay off. This is what it takes to truly transform women's lives so that they can overcome barriers, fulfill their potential, and gain and keep economic and political power.
