By Katie Quirk, Author, A Girl Called Problem

Today, Friday, October 11th, the world is celebrating the second annual Day of the Girl Child, and I couldn’t be more excited. I have a personal stake in the growing awareness that educating and empowering girls can transform whole communities — all of us do I suppose, but my dear friend and sister, Modesta, exemplifies that notion for me in a very personal way.

Modesta

Modesta Pounds Rice

I met Modesta in Tanzania in 1998. I was an American volunteer, teaching in a newly-formed university on the southern shore of Lake Victoria. Modesta was a spunky, 12-year-old girl with an infectious laugh who sold papayas and mangoes door to door. She also turned out to be the key to my survival in Tanzania.

In addition to teaching me how to speak Swahili, Modesta schooled me in village living — everything from how to carry buckets of water on my head, to how to bargain with vendors at the vegetable market, to how to rid my mattress of bedbugs. In return, I tried to do whatever I could for Modesta. I didn’t have a lot to offer — an open ear, a willingness to play with her on days when she had energy to spare after going to school, selling fruit, gathering firewood, washing her laundry by hand, cleaning dishes, carrying water…you get the picture. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Carolyn Danckaert, A Mighty Girl Founder

One of the great heroes of WWII led a secret operation to successfully smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, saving them from almost certain death, yet few people know the name of this largely unsung hero or have heard Irena Sendler's incredible story. Born in 1910, Sendler was a Polish Catholic nurse and social worker who began aiding Jews as early as 1939 after the Germans invaded Poland. At first, she helped to create false documents for over 3,000 Jewish families and later joined the Zegota, the underground Polish resistance organization created to aid the country's Jewish population.

In 1943, Sendler became head of Zegota's children's division and used her special access to the Warsaw Ghetto, granted to Social Welfare Department employees to conduct inspections for typhus, to set up a smuggling operation. She and her colleagues began secretly transporting babies and children out of the Ghetto by hiding them in an ambulance with a false bottom or in baskets, coffins, and even potato sacks. The children were then given false identities and placed with Polish families or in orphanages. To allow the children to be reunited with any surviving relatives following the war, Sendler buried lists containing the identities and locations of the children in jars. Continue reading → Continue reading