He’s helped push a massive fundraising campaign, that surpassed it’s initial $900 goal to raise more than $200,000 and get 683 school girls educated in Africa.
Even if that wasn’t what he actually intended to do.
Rather, Bernardi had used Craigburn Primary School’s “Do It In A Dress” campaign to spark outrage at “gender morphing” (his term). “One school in SA now has ‘wear a dress day’. This gender morphing is really getting absurd,” he tweeted earlier this week.
No, boys were not being forced to wear dresses as part of the campaign. Nor were girls. The school said on its blog that the student leadership team had decided to put a spin on this year’s “casual clothes day”, suggesting the “Do It In A Dress” campaign to help raise funds to educate girls in Africa. Students and staff were told they could go to school wearing a “dress or casual clothes.”
As the promotional piece said:
Did you know that in some countries around the world girls don’t go to school just because they are a girl? In fact, over 60 million girls around the world are denied an education. Without an education a girl can be kept in the cycle of poverty, and struggle to earn an income or look after herself and her family.
But a girl’s income increases by at least 10% for every year she stays in school. She’ll get married later and have a smaller, healthier family when she’s ready. Her health, economic status, and future family all benefit.
While Bernardi can rest easily knowing he helped kickstart some public momentum for this campaign, it’s comedian and actor Josh Thomas who must really be commended for his work. “These kids are being bullied by Cory for trying to help underprivileged girls. The site it linked to has been taken down. It appears he won,” Thomas tweeted following Bernardi’s outrage.
In response, Thomas said he’d donate $1000 to the cause, later upping the donation to $2000. A number of social media users found alternate pages where users could donate to the campaign, which Thomas retweeted.
The campaign built up more momentum on Wednesday night, managing to raise
$16,000 by Thursday morning, while the school kids involved where presumably sleeping. As Thomas tweeted again:
This is a screenshot of what that link went to. It’s students trying to money for charity. It has nothing to do with ‘gender morphing’ pic.twitter.com/77hmJxnsic
— Josh Thomas 🌈 (@JoshThomas87) September 20, 2017
How terrific! The Craigburn kids have been asleep during all this and will wake up to a tremendous $16k surprise! https://t.co/aDcziX8qVZ
— Josh Thomas 🌈 (@JoshThomas87) September 20, 2017
The social media push has continued over the last couple of days, with the amount raised hitting more than $200,000 by Friday.
Well done all. And well done Josh (and Cory, we hope this inspires more ‘Do It In A Dress’ campaigns).
Over $200000! 684 girls educated. This has been FUN. pic.twitter.com/CBVdbWafs5
— Josh Thomas 🌈 (@JoshThomas87) September 22, 2017