This week’s feel good news comes courtesy of Apple and Malala Yousafzai with the announcement of a new partnership to help further girls’ education.
It has been announced that Apple will become the Malala Fund’s first Laureate partner to help further enable the fund and Malala’s mission to bring every girl 12 years of free, safe and quality education.
In a release, Apple said that with the new partnership the “Malala Fund expects to double the number of grants awarded by its Gulmakai Network (which currently has operations in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Nigeria and Pakistan) and extend funding programs to India and Latin America with the initial goal of extending secondary education opportunities to more than 100,000 girls.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook will join the fund’s leadership council and the company will help with “research into policy changes needed to help girls everywhere attend school and complete their education.” Of the new partnership he said, “We believe that education is a great equalising force and we share Malala Fund’s commitment to give every girl the opportunity to go to school. Malala is a courageous advocate for equality. She’s one of the most inspiring figures of our time and we are honoured to help her extend the important work she is doing to empower girls around the world.”
It is estimated that 130 million girls worldwide are out of school, a number as staggering as it is unacceptable. And it’s an area that Malala feels incredibly strongly about, given her own well-documented experiences. “My dream is for every girl to choose her own future,” she said in a statement. “I am grateful that Apple knows the value of investing in girls and is joining [us] in the fight to ensure all girls can learn and lead without fear.”
For more information on the Malala Fund, click here. Then, discover more about the women’s empowerment platform Rebecca Minkoff is staging in lieu of a runway show during NYFW.
