The highest Return on investment in human development comes from keeping adolescent girls in school. Why? Educated girls make better personal choices, which translate into better family choices, which redound to better community choices, which end up as better national choices and a better humanity.
Better educated girls wait longer before beginning sex. They’re more likely to use protection when they do begin, avoiding both sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted children. They have fewer children when do begin childbearing. Those children receive better educations.
Educated mothers have better vocational opportunities if they do need to work. They are more likely to defend themselves from abuse in the workplace, or their children from abuse in the home. They are more engaged in community affairs. The effects of a single girl completing her education literally ripples into eternity.
TGUP’s Save a Girl project provides washable, reusable sanitary supplies to adolescent girls in the developing world. Properly taken care of, the kits last for three years, often long enough for a girl to finish school. The kits cost $5 to make but are given, free of charge, to the girls. That’s $1.67 per year. Is the ROI worth it? It is.