Archives
October 2024
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / November 18, 2024
You may have noticed that we’ve been rather quiet on our blog lately. That’s because we’ve been busy putting the final touches on an expanded strategy for Echidna Giving and growing our team to deliver against that strategy. We’re thrilled to formally share our expanded strategy here, which is also reflected in updates on our […]
Read MoreMay 2024
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / June 28, 2024
In 2021, Edward Paice published Youth Quake: Why African Demography Matters. He outlines how Africa’s population growth means that “by mid-century about one-third of the world’s working-age population will be African” and argues that “the consequences of youth endeavors to change politics will be of global importance.” (A NYTimes article last October also highlighted these […]
Read MoreMarch 2024
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / March 28, 2024
In March, we celebrate International Women’s Day. Alongside the celebration come lots of reflections on how well the world is progressing towards gender equality. As we read the various data — like these five charts on gender (in)equality around the world from the World Bank — the first thing that stood out to us is […]
Read MoreDecember 2023
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / December 19, 2023
As we wind up the year with shorter days here in the Northern Hemisphere and wars occurring in pockets of the world, we are reminded of the urgency of working towards greater freedom, justice, and peace for all. We are also revisiting some of the trends of 2023 in search of bright spots. Inspired by […]
Read MoreSeptember 2023
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / October 19, 2023
Our last post showed how many milestones we have to celebrate when it comes to girls’ education outcomes and highlighted the areas where we need to focus our work going forward. This month we confirm the progress that has been made, validating decades of work by girls’ education champions. However, as we discussed last month […]
Read MoreJuly & August 2023
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / August 30, 2023
The Global Education Monitoring Report was released in July. It finds that “In recent decades, progress on girls’ education access and completion has been one of the main achievements in equality in education,” noting that “all regions have achieved gender parity in education except sub-Saharan Africa, where there are 90 girls enrolled for every 100 […]
Read MoreMay 2023
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / June 9, 2023
In May, the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel released a new report on Cost-effective approaches to improve global learning, an update to their first report in 2020. “Over 400 additional high-quality evaluation studies” were reviewed for the latest report, including additional intervention categories: “health and nutrition interventions delivered through schools that could impact education outcomes, […]
Read MoreApril 2023
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / May 16, 2023
Apparently we missed International SEL Day in March (there’s a day for everything!!) but that’s not going to stop us from focusing our April Puggle on the latest and greatest in research and tools on life skills and social and emotional learning. First up, a group of funders (Porticus, LEGO Foundation, and the Jacobs Foundation) […]
Read MoreMarch 2023
Dana Schmidt / The Puggle / April 12, 2023
March started out with terrifying reports of schoolgirls in Iran being poisoned by toxic gas — yet another example of threats against girls’ education (which wars of the past have done little to solve). Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of schools in Burkina Faso have been closed due to violence in the region. But this widespread […]
Read MoreOur Principles
Dana Schmidt / Insights / February 28, 2023
Echidna Giving made its earliest grants in support of girls’ education in 2009. We have always been guided by a desire to do the most impactful, innovative, and promising work possible, and to pursue that work in ways that respect and enable our grantee partners. We are proud of our latest grantee perception survey results. […]
Read More