Helene D. Gayle Girl Quotations

As many as half of Ethiopia's girls become wives before becoming adults. But Ethiopia is also a place where lasting solutions to child marriage are starting to make a difference.

When I want to explain why empowering girls and women is critical to fighting poverty, I often tell a person's story. It's easier to relate to a personal story than to global data telling us that the majority of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day are women and girls. We are often told to never treat a person like a statistic.

As many as half of Ethiopias girls become wives before becoming adults. But Ethiopia is also a place where lasting solutions to child marriage are starting to make a difference.

If you educate a girl, you educate a nation.

No matter how you measure it, women and girls bear the brunt of poverty. But it's also clear that women are also our greatest hope for ending it. We at CARE have long believed that if you change the life of a girl or woman, you don't just change that individual, you change her family and then her community.