“What do you want to be some day?”

Jennifer could not answer without tears falling. She had wanted to be a teacher but now her dream seemed impossible. After her dad abandoned the family, her mom had to work full time. Someone had to take care of her younger siblings, but her older brothers needed to stay in school. With little choice, Jennifer dropped out after the 5th grade.

As a young girl growing up in Honduras, Jennifer’s value is measured in immediate economic terms: education makes little sense if you're going to raise a family. Her dreams must be sacrificed for the long-term value her older brothers represent. This beautiful 14 year-old girl is now more likely to have her own children earlier. With little education, Jennifer will – like her mom – earn very little. The cycle of poverty continues. 

Poverty robs the mind of the ability to hope more than one day at a time. Jennifer’s mom struggles to grasp how an investment in her daughter’s education could be the way out of her family’s poverty. But statistics prove that investment has high returns:

• One extra year of primary school will boost her future wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school yields 15 to 25 percent. (1)
• If a girl receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 few children. (2)
• If a girl gets a higher level of education her children will be healthier. (3)
• When girls and women earn income they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. (4)

Three of Jennifer’s siblings attend a Mission of Mercy project. If you were to go on a project day, you would see Jennifer right there with them, not as a sponsored child but in a “mother’s” role. She attends a Bible study for the mothers, too. Yet there is no mistaking the child in her as she helps the project leaders with the children. Because the project is in her church, there is hope that Jennifer will realize her dream of being a teacher.

A Mission of Mercy project understands the value of each child, especially girls, and invests in their development to help end the cycle of poverty that traps so many. Anyone who sponsors a young girl is making a unique investment that will go far beyond the child herself.

These girls need letters of affirmation and words of encouragement to chase their dreams despite the odds. Most of all they simply need to know that there is at least one person in their lives who believes in them and lifts them up to God, who captures every tear of hopelessness and is always on their side (Psalm 56).

Statistics:

Header: Human Rights Watch, “Promises Broken: An Assessment of Children’s Rights on the 10th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

1. World Bank, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update.” Policy Research Working Paper.
2. United Nations Population Fund, "State of World Population." 
3. Social Science and Medicine, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries.”
4. Yale News Daily, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World.”