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Plan International will bathe Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station in pink light on Thursday to kick off celebrations around the world for UN International Day of the Girl on October 11.
At 8pm on October 10, Seven Network’s Winners and Losers star Melanie Vallejo and Plan CEO Ian Wishart, will be leading a ceremony to switch on the lights that will bathe Flinders Street Station in a spectacular pink light for International Day of the Girl.
Other landmarks around the world will follow, including the Empire State Building in New York City.
The following morning (Friday, October 11) a huge interactive billboard will be unveiled on the concourse at Flinders Street Station at 10am. Standing three metres tall and 10 metres long, the billboard will depict a scene of young girls of school age working in a factory. Plan CEO Ian Wishart, supported by Victorian Girl Guides, will be inviting commuters to erase the image to reveal another scene below.
Australians who cannot make it to Flinders Street Station on Friday can view an online version of the billboard at plan.org.au.
Melbourne’s billboard will be the first of many unveiled around the globe on October 11. Similar billboards will be seen in UN Plaza in New York City and Trafalgar Square in London.
Ian Wishart, chief executive of Plan International Australia, said: “Right now, 66 million girls around the world are not in school and that’s why International Day of the Girl is so important. This is a day in which all of us can stand up for girls and stand up for their education.”
In 2007 Plan International launched the Because I am a Girl campaign to raise awareness of the fact that one in three girls around the world are denied an education.
On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognise girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. The first International Day of the Girl Child was observed in 2012. For its second observance, this year’s Day will focus on “Innovating for Girls’ Education”.
One year ago Malala Yousafzai, the teenager shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls education in Pakistan, addressed the United Nations in New York. Her speech, viewed by millions, made headlines around the world, bringing much needed attention to the plight of millions who are denied an education because they are a girl.
Photo credits: plan.org.au