That was the title of my master’s dissertation, which examined the discourse of girl’s education in development generally, and in the pilot episode of UNICEF’s Meena initiative specifically. (See the comic of the episode here).
My argument was basically that, while promoting girl’s education is a laudable aim of development, we cannot automatically assume that education in itself will be empowering to girls, especially in patriarchal socio-cultural contexts.
Nonetheless, UNICEF’s creative media venture featured a loveable animated heroine, Meena, among other characters, not only to promote girl’s education, but many other development aims, mostly, but not exclusively, dealing with women’s rights and empowerment. ‘Cause Meena is one tough cookie; looks can be deceiving! See more Meena videos here on Piyoo’s page.
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It’s amazing to me how much more is available now on the internet. When I was writing three years ago, I had a tough time tracking down the materials–the UNICEF site wasn’t working (in fact the streaming videos still don’t work), and the video I purchased from UNICEF had a portion missing! Piyoo has somehow located all these wonderful videos online.
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