Four percent of women worldwide have a college degree. Forty percent of women are married before the age of 18. The entire country of Malawi has 10 obstetrician-gynecologists for a country of 12 million.

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Kayvon Beykpour

Students inspect a poster at the thinkBIG conference, a three-day event focused on international women’s health issues.

These concerns, among others, were tackled at thinkBIG, a three-day event organized in an effort to “mobilize our generation” to take action for international women’s health and human rights.

Student organizers were inspired to launch the event after taking a sophomore seminar on international women’s health taught by Human Biology Prof. Anne Firth Murray.

Approximately 40 Stanford students, almost all of them women, piled into Tresidder’s Oak Room Friday night, as Murray kicked off the conference with her opening talk. She said that Stanford was a prime place for thinkBIG, since Jane Stanford insisted on coeducation at the University from the very beginning.

Murray said that dire problems affecting women have been hidden, and urged students to fight against inequality.

“I exhort you to move forward without fear and with open minds,” she said.

Lauren Bishop ‘10, an organizer of the event, also addressed those in attendance.

“The thing that excites me most about thinkBIG is that there will be something for everyone,” she said. “For some, the conference will be an orientation to women’s issues. For others, it will be a couple of days in a life’s work dedicated to women.”

ThinkBIG activities continued throughout the weekend. Four Saturday panels — along with a “BIG Picture” discussion featuring four keynote speakers — focused on women’s education and health.

“You educate a girl, you educate the future,” said writer and photographer Amanda Jones at the Girls’ Education panel on Saturday morning.

Sanskriti also presented BIGRhythms, a performing arts showcase, on Saturday night.

Panelists at the conference included Stephen Lewis, former special envoy to the UN secretary general; Esta Soler, founder of the Family Violence Prevention Fund; Eunice Brookman Amissah, former minister of health of Ghana; and Fiona Muchembere, a Zimbabwean lawyer working for the Campaign for Female Education.

Keynote speaker Sarah Bouchie, the director of the education unit of the humanitarian organization CARE, said that education allows a woman to earn more for her family, makes her less likely to contract HIV and enables her to know her own self-worth.

Bouchie encouraged Stanford students to invest in efforts to educate girls in the developing world.

“Progress is possible, but it does take a concerted effort,” Bouchie said. “You [Stanford students] are in the light. You have the responsibility to help shine light onto others.”