Girl Rising

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This is a simple story.

And it did not begin here.

This thing of beauty,

a joy forever rising.

This warm glow in darkness

like a harvest Moon.

A Khmer proverb whispers-

celebrate when the Moon is bright.

But for years she was

a child of the dump.

A place where smoke

blackened Sun and Moon.

And eyes seldom looked up from

the world of things tossed aside.

An orphan discarded, learning

lessons no school would teach.

Hunting the rot for glints of light,

metal containers, silver spoons.

Listening for the sound a prong

makes when it finds a plastic bottle.

Careful not to step on used syringes,

rusty nails or broken glass.

In daydreams she pictured freshly

sharpened pencils, rows of desks,

the chant of the alphabet.

Wandering visions to

pass long empty days

in a place where a girl is simply one

more thing the world has thrown away.

And when they found her,

when this girl's dreams came through

she had not dreamt of gold,

she had not wished for beauty.

Hers was a simple dream.

The bright white shirt

of a school uniform.

The crisp pleats of a skirt.

Shelves full of books.

A dream of school,

and how she dances behind

a contented smile

because she knows this is

no longer a simple story.

Now this is her story to write.

She is the author and this is not

the end, it is just a beginning.

This is Wadley.

She's 8 years old.

She plays herself on the story from

her own life that you're about to see.

Just like Sokha did.

And just like the other girls you will meet.

Senna.

Azmera.

Suma.

Mariama.

And Ruksana.

Two others who we'll

call Yasmin and Amina

could not appear on their stories

out of concern for their safety.

Each of these girls was paired with

a writer from her own country

to help tell her story.

These are true stories.

If sometimes we imagined

to capture the things

these girls and these writers

wanted to see.

And their stories are important.

Because these girls hold

our future in their hands.

If they and the millions

of girls like them succeed

in getting the kind of education they need

incredible things will happen.

For them, for their families,

for their community, for their country.

For all of us.

Here's the hard thruth:

In spite of the fact that educating a girl

is one of the highest return investments

available in the developing world

millions of girls just aren't making it.

Right now there are 66 million

girls out of school.

And many more who struggle every day

to simply remain where they belong.

In a classroom.

WADLEY,

Haiti

The morning of January 12th 2010.

was bright and beautiful,

In a way that Wadley could not remember

any other morning ever having been before.

It was the dry season when

wild flowers bloomed

and flowers that bloomed on their own

without rain

fascinated some little girls.

It made impossible things seem possible.

Unachievable things appeared doable.

And the flowers, the hibiscus,

the azaleas, the bougainvilleas,

they all looked even brighter

when Wadley was happy.

Wadley! Wake up.

You're going to be late for school.

That morning Wadley was

working to memorize

Toussaint L'Ouverture's final speech

as he was removed

by Haiti by the French,

after he tried to win independence

for the country.

Wadley liked to imagine herself defiant,

like brave Toussaint L'Ouverture.

But she also wished she'd be given

some words by women to recite.

Brave and strong women

like her mother.

Wadley, one snack is enough!

Every day Wadley brought two snacks

from her mother's tray.

One for herself and one for another child.

That day she chose a

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