Team Gronk

Dr. Pallister

PSCI 365

November 9, 2017

Advocacy Project Action Plan

Our group hopes to raise awareness about women’s educational rights abroad,

specifically in countries with a history of abusing these rights, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and

Ethiopia. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states quite simply in Article 26:

“Everyone has the right to education,” (UDHR, 1948). In Pakistan, school-age girls are barred

from education, often through violent means. In Afghanistan, over half the population of school-

age girls do not attend school, despite steps to increase educational opportunities for them;

poverty and fear have prevented them from attending school. In Ethiopia, female students often

cannot attend school due to general accessibility and male influence: male family members

sometimes prevent female students from attending school. We chose these countries because of

their history of educational inequality among female students.

The project will be carried out in two major steps. The first will be researching more

detailed information and compiling it into a handout. This handout will include educational

demographics at Bridgewater for reference and comparison. It will also include information

about the educational situations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia. We will distribute this

handout at a table set up outside the KCC in exchange for pieces of candy. The candy will

hopefully attract interest, but students can only take a piece if they also take a handout. We will

also pass out fliers advertising for step two, in addition to advertising the second step over social

media and through inviting friends.

 Step two will be a showing of a film related to women’s educational rights, Girl Rising,

followed by a group discussion. We hope this film will help students put educational rights into a

personal perspective. During the discussion, we will provide available steps for student

involvement and open the conversation for students to suggest their own ways to get involved.

One of these ways includes working with an organization called the Malala Fund. We will open

the discussion by asking what participants already know about women’s educational rights and

frame the issue in the context of Bridgewater’s demographics as discussed above. Further

discussion points are personal responses to the film, what viewers learned from it, and how

motivated they are to pursue individual action. Additionally, we will ask participants what, if

anything, they believe the international standard should be for women’s educational rights. We

will show the film at the Center for Engaged Learning or the Boitnott Room, depending on

where we can get permission to do so. During the discussion, we will provide information on

how students can work with the Malala Fund, including how they can access a documentary

about their work on the organization’s website. This handout will also describe another form of

action students can make: contacting their local representatives. Since many people doing so

would be unsure what to say, this handout will provide a script that will outline how callers can

encourage their local representatives to advocate for women’s rights abroad.