Jessica was only a sixth grader when she learned that most girls in Rwanda are orphans, and they don’t have the money or materials to attend school. Over the next several years, she rallied her classmates to raise money for rural Rwandan girls through bake sales, tee shirt sales and donation drives.

After a recent front page article in the Seattle Times caught the attention of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, he donated $25,000, bringing her total to $75,000 raised in three years.

The charity, Richard’s Rwanda, now has five chapters in Seattle high schools and, after visiting the African country, Jessica has recruited a private girls’ school there to help expand her fundraising work internationally.

According to a national survey released by the Girl Scouts on the eve of New York City’s legendary Fashion Week, most girls are happy with their bodies and reject thin fashion models as unrealistic.

According to a Girl Scouts of America press release, the survey of 1,002 girls ages 13 to 17 “comes amid continuing controversy over super thin models who are dangerously underweight, (and charges that) the fashion industry’s preference for waif-like women has led to models engaging in obsessive dieting and extreme weight loss, as well as setting a poor example for teenage girls.”

The study found that girls’ friends and peers have much more influence over how they feel about their bodies than do fashion models. Eighty-two percent said that their peers and friends influenced how they felt about their bodies; 65 percent said it was their parents, and 62 percent reported another family member.

About three-quarters of the girls were happy with their bodies.

(Continue reading at Discovery.com)