In three years, school enrolment in eighteen villages doubled to 44 per cent, and girls enrolment rose from 18 per cent to over 33 per cent well beyond the original goals. The empowerment which literacy brings is the key to a better life. It is well known that an educated woman has fewer and healthier children, and is more likely to send her children to school. In Brazil, for instance, illiterate women have an average of 6.5 children, whereas those with secondary education have 2.5 children. The child of a Zambian mother with a primary education has a 25 per cent better chance of survival than a child of a mother with no education.
Literacy also gives women a voice.
In Bangladesh, women with a secondary education are three times more likely to attend a political meeting than are women with no education. Micro-credit schemes modelled on the Grameen Bank have literally revolutionized the lives of thousands of poor rural women. Ownership is a vital element of such programmes. When a group of fisherwomen in Benin decided they needed numeracy before literacy, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization adapted educational material using symbols insteads of words to describe goods and services. . Many non-governmental organizations promote women s issues and gender sensitivity.