In response to COVID-19, mayors around the world are working together on a global economic recovery that puts communities and the planet first.
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Transforming girls’ education across the world takes a village.
From Pakistan to Tanzania, the most effective education solutions are community-led. Here’s how local leaders, in partnership with Malala Fund and supported by Pura, are mobilizing entire communities.
When asked to describe what Tanzania smells like, Grace Isekore closes her eyes and breathes in deep. For a moment, she’s somewhere else entirely. Tanzania is a rich tapestry of sights and scents, from the smell of sea mist that permeates the coastline to the earthy cardamom and cloves she cooks with in her kitchen. But when Grace emerges from her reverie, her answer is unexpected.
“Tanzania smells like peace,” she says, her eyes still closed. “I see a beautiful country where we are free to move, free to speak. And there is peace within the community.”
For Grace, that sense of peace isn’t just something she smells; it’s something she works toward every day. As a project coordinator with Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), a women-led organization that empowers pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania, she has seen firsthand how girls flourish when they have the opportunity to attend school. Like scent, education not only connects girls to their own culture, but also helps broaden their horizons, realizing new possibilities for themselves and others. That transformation reshapes entire communities and ripples outward, with the potential to change countries and transform the world for the better.
Different scents, different approaches, and communities driving change

Spices in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura For Grace and others around the world, education is freedom, as well as a pathway to a stronger community. Rooted in that shared belief, Pura, a home fragrance company, was inspired to build on their four-year partnership with Malala Fund to create something truly unique: a fragrance collection that connects people through scent to communities in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil, where barriers to girls’ education are among the highest.
Using ingredients from each region, the new Pura x Malala Fund Collection uses scent to transport people to these regions directly. “Future in Bloom,” for example, invokes Pakistan’s lush valleys through notes of jasmine, cedarwood, and mango; while Tanzania’s fragrance, “Heart on Fire,” evokes the spirit and joyfulness of the girls who live there through cardamom, lemon, and green tea.
The new Collection honors the work Malala Fund does every day, partnering with locally-led organizations in these four countries to ensure every girl can access and complete 12 years of education. Each scent celebrates the joy, tenacity, and courage of the women and girls driving change on the ground, while also augmenting Pura’s annual grant to Malala Fund by donating eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection to Malala Fund directly.
Just as each country’s scent is unique, so too are their needs related to education. But with support from Malala Fund and Pura, local leaders are coming up with creative ways to mobilize entire communities (parents, teachers, elders, and the students themselves, in their pursuit of solutions, understanding that educating girls helps everyone thrive. Here’s how their efforts are creating real, durable impact in Tanzania and Pakistan, and creating a ripple effect that changes the world for the better.
Parent-teacher associations help Maasai girls and their communities in Tanzania problem-solve

A girl’s school in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura Northern Tanzania, Grace’s home, is home to pastoralist communities like the Maasai, a nomadic people who have moved with the seasons to nurture the land and care for their livestock for centuries. The nomadic nature of this lifestyle creates significant and unique barriers to girls’ education. Longstanding gender roles have enabled Maasai to survive in the harsh environment and have placed great value on both women and men. Over time, as nomadic life has been threatened by the privatization of land and stationary education models have been implemented, the reality of pastoralist livelihood has shifted and introduced new complexities. Now, the sheer distance to schools is both a practical challenge and one that often comes with danger from the landscape, predators, and potential exposure to assault along the journey. Girls shoulder the responsibility of household chores and there is often cultural pressure around early marriage – both leading to boys’ education being prioritized over girls’.
“There are very, very good [pastoralist] cultural practices, which are passed from generation to generation,” says Janet Kimori, an English teacher at Lekule Girls Secondary School in Longido, Tanzania. But when cultural practices act as educational barriers, “you have to sit down and look for where you are going to assist. As a school, as an individual, the school administration—all of us will chip in and know how we are going to deal with this problem.”
PWC works to ensure girls are able to exercise their right to an education while also preserving pastoralist culture. One successful approach, the organization found, has been the formation of Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), created with help from Malala Fund. In PTA meetings, students, parents, teachers, elders, and government officials meet, discuss educational barriers, and come up with community-led solutions that preserve and honor their culture while advancing educational outcomes.

PTA meeting in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura One recent PTA meeting highlights how these community-led solutions are often the most effective. At Lekule Girls Secondary School, the lack of fresh water forces girls to walk long distances to collect water for the school’s kitchen during the school day, and these long journeys not only disrupt class time but can leave girls vulnerable to sexual assault in isolated areas. Through facilitated discussion, PTA members landed on a solution: installing a borehole to pipe in fresh water to the school. Reliable access to water creates a better learning environment for the girls, but it also benefits the community at large, as local governments are then more likely to invest in health clinics and other community resources nearby.
With a solution in place, the PTA was then able to discuss ideas and map out a course of action. The women would raise money for the cost of the borehole, while the men would recruit workers to dig the hole and lay the pipe. Together, they would ask government officials to match their investment.
The benefits of PTA meetings within the pastoralist communities are undeniable. “The girls are talking and addressing issues in a confident way, and parents feel they are part of the resource team to solve challenges happening at school,” Grace says. One unexpected benefit: The larger cultural impact these PTA meetings have created. Thanks to the success of PTAs within pastoralist communities, the models are now being endorsed on a national level, and schools across Tanzania are starting to use them to solve problems in their own communities. When a community creates opportunities for girls to learn, everyone benefits.
Safe spaces in rural Pakistan help students and their parents connect, then drive change

Safe space for girls meeting in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed. A continent away in Pakistan, the country’s northernmost region of Gilgit-Baltistan seems like a land untouched by time. The region’s looming mountains, snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and crystalline lakes draw nature lovers and landscape photographers from around the world, but living among this kind of breathtaking scenery has its drawbacks. Schools in the region are few and far between, and the area’s harsh climate often makes roads inaccessible for travel. Poverty and gender-based discrimination are additional obstacles, making school even further out of reach, and girls are affected disproportionately. Going up against these barriers requires a persistent, quiet strength that’s found in the women who live there and reflected in Pakistan’s signature scent.
Saheli Circles are how local leaders in Gilgit-Baltistan are bridging the gap between girls and education. An Urdu term for “female friend,” Saheli Circles are after-school safe spaces where girls explore subjects like art and climate change, while also developing skills that help them manage emotions, set goals, and build positive relationships. Girls study in groups, visit the library, play sports, and tackle filmmaking and photography projects, all designed to develop self confidence and teach the girls how to advocate for issues that matter to them. But the work doesn’t stop there.
“What we’re trying to achieve here will only be impactful if it trickles down to the home environment and the school environment,” says Marvi Sumro, founder and program director of Innovate, Educate, and Inspire Pakistan (IEI), the local organization that developed the Saheli Circles model and partnered with Malala Fund in 2021 to make it a reality. Ever since, Saheli Circles have grown to involve teachers, elders, and parents to encourage relationship building that’s essential for young girls and adolescents. “Our spaces can give mothers and daughters an opportunity to interact a little differently—do an art activity, or have a cup of tea together, or some good conversation,” Marvi says.
The relationship building is what makes the biggest positive impact throughout the community. Recently, one Saheli Circle was able to bring together parents, teachers, and administrators to advocate for better education at their local school, and together they convinced the department of education to hire a science teacher. Another Saheli Circle organized a fund where members of the community can contribute monthly to pay for uniforms, books, and other school expenses for the girls in their village, eliminating those small, hidden costs that are often a barrier to education for many. A third Saheli Circle was able to produce a short film about how gender-based household chores can take away valuable study time from girls, leaving them at a disadvantage. “The girls put the film together and showed it to the mothers, and the response from the mothers was just beautiful,” Marvi says.

Girls smiling in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed. The education and relationship building that the girls receive in Saheli Circles connects them to larger opportunities and economic freedom that are not possible in their hometown. “For girls in Gilgit-Baltistan, education is extremely important because of the fact that we’re so far away from where the economy is, where the opportunity is. Education becomes this bridge for us, for our girls, to access all the opportunity and economy that exists in [larger cities].”
From rural Tanzania to remote Pakistan, local organizations prove every day that prioritizing girls’ education benefits everyone. Communities that lift up girls are able to secure resources like clean water and well-staffed schools, as well as build stronger relationships.
These outcomes are only possible because of the women and girls who work tirelessly in these regions to overcome barriers and drive progress. The Pura x Malala Fund Collection is a way to honor them, celebrate their achievements, and unite people the world over around a shared belief that education is freedom. Like scent, that belief can build, travel, and has the possibility to transform the world.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
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These mayors are leading the way to a fair and green recovery from COVID-19
Since COVID-19 was identified in December 2019, it has spread around the world, wreaking havoc on our daily lives. As of July 6, 2020, there have been over 11.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported across 216 countries and territories. Over 500,000 people have died. Cities and countries instituted strict lockdowns or issued shelter-in-place orders,…
Since COVID-19 was identified in December 2019, it has spread around the world, wreaking havoc on our daily lives.
As of July 6, 2020, there have been over 11.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported across 216 countries and territories.
Over 500,000 people have died.
Cities and countries instituted strict lockdowns or issued shelter-in-place orders, but as we retreated indoors to flatten the curve, economies ground to a halt. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Hospital ICUs hit capacity. Inequality has been made painfully obvious as the most marginalized communities are forced to bear the worst impacts. Never before has it been more clear just how interconnected our health and the health of the planet truly is.
Experts have been warning of a coming pandemic for decades and yet, we weren’t ready when the reality hit.
Now, as cities and countries work towards recovery, it’s clear we’ve come to a crossroads. If we want true recovery and resilience in case of a future disaster, we’re going to need both social and environmental justice.
That is why in April 2020, C40 mayors launched the Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force.
The goal is simple: rebuild cities and economies in a way that improves public health, reduces inequality, and addresses the climate crisis — keeping global heating below 1.5°C.
The mayors laid out their collective vision for a better future by detailing what actions they’re doing or plan to do:
Step one is creating green new jobs for an inclusive economy.
Los Angeles, for example, is investing in training for new green jobs to transition to an inclusive economy, while Seoul plans to create around 20,000 green jobs by retrofitting buildings by 2022.
This also involves taking steps towards upskilling or reskilling the workforce.
Medellín, Colombia is training 25,000 people in science, technology and innovation. They’re also devoting special focus to empowering women.
“We bet on science, technology, and innovation to deal with the coronavirus,” says Mayor Daniel Quintero. “But [we] also recognize that education is the most powerful tool for transforming, not only this society, but any society.”
“We can’t build a society that leaves half of its people behind.”
Step two is working towards resilience and equity by providing fundamental public services for everyone.
This involves investing in public services, such as clean water, food, sanitation, and affordable, safe housing.
It also means investing in public transit, cycling, electric vehicles, and low emission zones.
London is rolling out one of the biggest car-free initiatives of any city in the world. Ongoing efforts to improve air quality have already reduced air pollution in the city by 35%. Meanwhile, Quezon City has launched an urban agriculture program by changing its zoning ordinances. These urban farms will improve the city’s resilience to climate breakdown. In fact, during the pandemic, the city government and their partners have already provided 3.2 million food aid packages to vulnerable populations in just two months.
Finally, step three is taking action for health and well-being by giving public space to people and nature, reclaiming streets, guaranteeing clean air, and creating livable communities.
Freetown committed to growing and planting one million trees across the city in one year as part of this and Melbourne is planting 150,000 trees and other plants to create habitats, support biodiversity, and create jobs for people unemployed due to COVID-19. Both Milan and Paris committed to adopting plans to transform into “15-minute cities,” where all residents will be able to meet most of their needs within a short walk or bicycle from their homes.
But the C40 mayors aren’t stopping there. They’re also calling on national and regional governments, central banks, and international institutions to join them.
Specifically, they’re calling on them to deliver a green and just recovery by:
- Ensuring that the only stimulus is a green stimulus
- Committing to an equitable and inclusive recovery
- Protecting and championing mass transit
- Prioritizing and investing in clean energy
- Investing in resilient cities as the engines of recovery
- Ending all public fossil fuel investments and subsidies.
Want to ensure your city gets involved? Sign this petition and tell G20 countries to spend public money on a safe and just recovery for everyone in your city.

