Empowered to change the world
- kirranicolle
- Oct 12
- 3 min read
BY AUXILIARY-LIEUTENANT ROSY KEANE
You may or may not have heard of the International Day of the Girl Child, celebrated this year on 11 October, which was yesterday, with the theme The Girl I Am, The Change I Lead.
Most articles about the Day of the Girl Child will be written and read by adults, yet our hope is to turn our hearts and minds toward the girls in our midst and around the world, focusing our efforts on recognising their value and participating in actions to co-create a better future for them.
The statistics are frightening: 133 million girls are out of school today. For perspective, the population of Australia is about 27 million. That’s almost five times our entire nation of girls without education, options or a viable future. They could not write or read this article.
Why do we have an International Day of the Girl? Because statistics like these show how uniquely vulnerable girls are. Yet the theme The Girl I Am, The Change I Lead reminds us that girls are also uniquely empowered to transform the world.
Familiar story
My great-grandmother Bel was born in 1902. When she was six years old, she was given away to make room for one of many more children. The man in the new ‘family’ quickly ended schooling for Bel, and at eight years old she was forced into farm work and house labour. Bel became one of these statistics.
She ran away and eventually was placed into one of The Salvation Army’s orphanages in rural New Zealand, where she went on to become a Salvation Army soldier. Over 120 years later, here I am, with The Salvation Army still. This tenacious young girl who endured so much impacted generations to come.
For many girls, Bel’s story isn’t so far removed from their own. Around the world, simply for the crime of being born a girl, she could face child marriage, female genital mutilation, sex trafficking and forced labour, male violence and compromised access to health care. She will also grow up to be disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis.
At times, it could feel frightening to be born a girl, and maybe even like a curse.
God’s perspective
But the Scriptures remind us otherwise:
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” (Psalm 139, verses 13–16, New International Version).
Malala Yousafzai, world-renowned activist who survived the Taliban and champions young girls’ education, shares in her book, I Am Malala, how, when she was born, her father showered her crib with coins and fruit, gifts usually reserved only for boys. Her father taught her that being a girl is a source of wonder and pride, not disappointment and pain. Because of his belief in her purpose and position, she went on to change generations.
We believe God has a great plan for us. God made girls. God does not see a girl’s birth as a curse. God’s grace to the world is girls, promising them that they can be part of restoration for the world.
What can you do?
Girls everywhere need our love, care, attention and empowerment. Their unique skills and presence in the world will herald powerful opportunities for transformation, bringing balance, creativity and growth to a world that desperately needs them. (Imagine the grace, solutions and wholeness that would emerge if five times the population of Australia worth of girls were simply given the gift of education?)
So, we ask:
Where can you give, or invest in local and international causes, that will benefit girls?
How might your heroes and examples of faith include and uplift girls?
And finally, how can your prayers and generosity transform not only Australia one life at a time, but the entire world, one girl at a time? Who knows what influence your belief in girls will have 120 years in the future.
