Girl Rising Page #4

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He told Etenesh - No.

And Azmera stepped

forward and told her mother:

"I want a better life."

Together they refused this marriage.

I want to tell Azmera the most

important parts of this story.

About a boy trapped in a tower.

Same Sun that brought this boy down,

raises you up and gives you strength.

You can go as far and

as high as you want,

as you are able to dream.

It is not ambition that destroys us.

It is not hope that leads us astray.

You are a girl who has

used her voice to say: No.

And every time you open a book,

you continue your journey forward and up.

We are from a country

full of split girls.

We must reach out with

firm hands and hold them

until the peace is fit again.

You are showing them how to

live by letting them hear you say:

I want a choice and this

life is mine to make.

This is how it happens.

One girl follows behind the other,

until together they move

forward, towards something.

A future.

Here's an unsettling fact:

The number one cause of

death for girls 15 to 19

it's not AIDS,

it's not hunger.

It's not war.

It's childbirth.

When girls marry young,

education ends.

And the old cycles continue.

Cycles of poverty,

cycles of violence,

cycles of ignorance.

But a girl who gets an education

starts a different kind of cycle

because she's going to stay healthier.

She's going to get married later.

She's going to have fewer

and healthier children.

And most of all, she's going to

have educated children.

And it's not just mothers.

Fathers too have to invest.

So their daughters can dream.

It was always hottest before

the rains came.

Sometimes even my daydreams

seemed ready to burst,

blistering beneath the

city's crushing heat.

And I remember how my

mother's eyes would shine

when my father talked about

moving back to the village one day.

"In the city", she used to say, "life rushes

through the streets like a thousand rivers."

"But in the village there's only one river."

"And it's real with cool waters flowing

besides mango trees full of parrots."

I would love to live besides a cool

river and eat free mangos all day.

But I was so far from that river.

I was born here, in the city.

In our house on the sidewalk.

RUKSANA,

India

My mother had her

parrots in the village.

In the city I had my own friends.

Stop dreaming!

You'll get us all killed one day!

Ruksana?

Come here.

Bring your notebook with you.

Drawing pictures?

Drawing pictures in math class!

Do you think this class is a joke?

Get out!

No more trouble! That's what

my father said last time.

And I promised - no more.

But somehow trouble always found me.

Mama and Papa are home.

You're going to get a blasting.

Papa's calling you.

Come on.

You know how hard I struggle

to send you to school

so you can study and

make something of yourself.

I don't send you to school

to draw, do I?

How many notebooks have

you ruined with your doodles?

I won't do it again.

I'll only draw this in this book

and I will study really hard.

I promise.

That was the happiest day of my life.

After that I would have

promised my father anything.

Somedays there wasn't even

enough money for food.

But today there was a notebook,

colored pens, no punishment.

Had there ever been a girl as lucky as me?

I remember thinking that one day

I would take my mother and

my father and my sisters

in an aeroplane.

We would fly high above the

city and the country side,

and see every part of Earth.

After we landed we wouldn't

live on the street anymore.

We would live in a big house

by the river in the village,

and everyone would have their own bed,

and my father would have many cows,

and my mother would have her parrots.

And I would have a monkey

who I'd call Musty,

and I'd teach him to do all my math.

Hey, what are you doing?

Drawing? Show us.

Don't be scared, we're your friends.

We won't hurt you. Just relax.

Why are you scared? Come on.

Come with us, we'll play in the alley.

Papa!

Daddy can't help you!

We won't do a thing to you.

I want to go back to our village!

No. I won't leave.

We came so far to educate our girls

so they can lead better lives.

I won't give up now.

School!

What's the point

if street thugs attack them?

We've come so far...

Our girls are doing well

in school and learning fast.

We can't go back.

After that my sisters and I

spent our nights at a shelter.

My father said it wasn't safe for us

to be on the streets after dark.

Who do you think you are?!

We run this night shelter

while you watch TV!

Go and do some work!

The rest of you as well!

How could so much beauty

and so much meanness

be together in one world?

Where was that magic place

inside the television?

And inside my head?

And why was I stuck here instead?

Maybe I was being punished after all.

After that long terrible night

the monsoon rains came.

My favorite time of the year.

But this time the rains

came with more tears.

Hey go, go, go all of you...

Come on!

Tear down this slum!

Everybody out!

These are our homes!

Please don't do this!

A thousand rivers flowing with life.

And us adrift.

No place in the soaking

world for roots to take hold.

Everyone was crying.

Even my drawings.

You were right.

Let's go...

Back to the village.

No.

You were right.

We've come this far

with such difficulty.

Why should we let them drive us away?

Even after all that

still we were together.

A family.

I felt in my heart that

everything would be OK.

My friends were still there.

That's when I learned

to never give up.

Because after the rain

there's always sunshine.

Ruksana is one of the lucky ones.

She's still in school.

Her parents can't afford

a place to live,

but they somehow find a way

to get their daughters to school.

It's not easy.

Because even though

it's a great investment,

in a lot of the world school isn't free.

Parents don't just

have to pay for school.

They have to buy books.

And uniforms.

Sometimes they pay for

exams and report cards.

For millions of families

it is simply too much.

A girl born on planet Earth today

has a 1 on 4 chance

being born into poverty.

And without a good school

that is where she'll stay.

But the right education

can change all that.

Knowledge is power.

Just ask Senna.

SENNA,

Peru

"The Black Heralds"

by the great poet Cesar Vallejo.

"There are blows in life,

so powerful...

I don't know!

Blows as from God's hatred,

Like a riptide of human suffering

rammed into a single soul...

I don't know!"

The first time I read that

it took my breath away.

The rhythm of it.

The force.

For me, it was unforgettable.

Poetry is how I turn ugliness into art.

Dark into light.

Fear into will.

I didn't learn this over the years

as I learned math or history.

I learned it all at once.

In a swift kick to my heart.

My name is Senna.

I am 14 years old.

I live and study in La Rinconada.

La Rinconada is a gold mining

town in Peru.

Perched on the side of a

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