Actress Cate Blanchett is making a major push for empowering young women through education one week after receiving an honorary doctorate from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Cate Blanchett at @Macquarie_Uni where student grabs a selfie with the double Oscar winner: http://t.co/XlGr4drq9Y http://ift.tt/1ryIz9R
— Northern Dist Times (@ndtimes) September 25, 2014
The actress, known for her roles in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and last year’s Blue Jasmine, co-wrote an op-ed in The Guardian newspaper this week that argued female education is the key to strengthening communities.
“We know that educating boys and girls, men and women, is morally right,” she wrote with former Australia prime minister Julia Gillard. “But educating girls and women is especially effective because when we educate them, the benefits are felt throughout the whole community. It’s a magic multiplier in the development equation.”
Education can have a far-reaching effect on communities by enabling women to participate more fully in the economy and support their household.
Blanchett and Gillard also cited steep, wide-ranging costs for failing to properly educate young women:
Tragically, over 60m girls remain out of school around the world. Even where significant progress has been made to get girls into school, they are often deprived strong groundings in the education essentials of literacy and numeracy. This has a negative compound effect, making it hard for them to progress beyond primary school even where such opportunities are available.
Not only the human but also the economic cost of this educational deprivation of girls and women is huge, and the cost to individual economies can be as high as $1bn a year. Plan’s Children in Focus report puts the global economic price of failing to educate girls to the same level as boys at $92bn each year. To put this in perspective, that figure falls just short of the combined annual overseas aid budgets of the world’s developed countries.
The piece received plenty of attention on Twitter, with many users welcoming the leadership of two prominent female leaders.
http://ift.tt/1rQYqjd
"The world cannot afford to not educate girls any longer." A wonderful piece by @JuliaGillard & Cate Blanchett: http://t.co/cUicGJT91e
— Rebecca Winthrop (@RebeccaWinthrop) October 1, 2014
Educate women and their communities will prosper. @JuliaGillard & Cate Blanchett speak up for girls #education: http://t.co/Ly7OCg43Co
— A World at School (@aworldatschool) October 1, 2014
On receiving her honorary Doctor of Letters degree, Blanchett stirred a powerful defense of the arts and arts education, telling the gathered students that the only wasted arts education is the nonexistent one.
The arts are what we stay alive for, what we work all week for, what we dream about, what connects us and indeed, what some would say makes us human. It is the arts that has always been the driver of innovation and exploration. So remember when someone asks what the hell can you do with an Arts degree, ask them what can the world do without one?
Listen to Cate Blanchett's wise words during a university commencement speech: http://t.co/5cTqDy07iG
— JustJared.com (@JustJared) September 28, 2014
Whether Cate Blanchett’s star power will move global education policy remains to be seen, but at least many appear to see her as a role model who could make a big difference in the effort.
What an amazing role model… #CateBlanchett was honoured at uni http://t.co/RDwppHCpN1 via @InSharpRelief http://ift.tt/1ryIAdQ
— Sydney Confidential (@SydConfidential) September 25, 2014
[photo credit: Siebbi]
Cate Blanchett: Empower Women Through Education
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire