YouTube Teams With Nonprofit ‘One’ To Combat The Gender Gap In Education

YouTube’s Creators For Change initiative is partnering with nonprofit One — which works to end extreme poverty and preventable disease — on a brand new campaign to help close the gender gap in education.

Given that there are currently 130 million young girls across the globe who do not have access to an education — which could represent a roughly $150 billion missed opportunity to boost the economies of developing countries — YouTube and One are teaming up on a social media initiative called #GirlsCount, according to a company blog post. The initiative is taking place today in honor of the United Nations’ international Day Of The Girl, which falls annually on Oct. 11 and serves to galvanize enthusiasm about bettering young girls’ lives.

In a bid to create the longest YouTube video of all time, prospective participants are asked to choose an available number

between one and 130,000,000, and then compose a video or photo of themselves reciting it. YouTube and One will then edit all of the contributions into a massive clip serving to commemorate the 130,000,000 girls who are not in school today. Top YouTube stars — including DIY channel TheSorryGirls (pictured above), natural hair care vlogger Whitney White, Brazilian vlogger Maddu Magalhães, and education creator Aboubakar Idriss — have already created their own videos to help spread the word.

Aditionally, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki — who is an outspoken advocate for girls and women — furnished her own clip alongside Physics Girl for the number 117,000, inspired by the fact that it costs $1.17 to educate a girl for one day in some countries.

Check it out below: