Sweet Up and Down: Girls Leadership Camp: An Attempt To Tip The Scales

So far, any health work I've done in my village has been very informal and not very well received. Even if I have helped educate people in my village about health topics, I really haven't ever felt like I've made that big of a difference in their lives. I recently was able to do some very fun and fulfilling work outside of my village, helping my closest neighbors Sara, Sharon, and Erin do a girl’s leadership camp in Koumpentoum, the departmental capital of Tamba. The three of them had written and received a grant for this camp and subsequently planned most of it all before I even arrived to Tamba, but even though I wasn't a part of the initial planning stages, but I was able to help with its implementation and it was very gratifying, to say the least.

The idea for doing a girls leadership camp stemmed from The Michele Sylvester Memorial Scholarship Fund program, which is funded by friends and family of Peace Corps Senegal who are committed to girls' education in Senegal, many of which have experienced the real circumstances when it comes to girls education here. In short, there are many economic, cultural, and social barriers that keep girls from attending and succeeding in school. UNICEF estimates that almost two-thirds of women age 15 and up in Senegal are illiterate, and that only 16 percent of Senegalese girls finish elementary school and go on to secondary school. With that in mind, scholarships are awarded at the middle school level only and are based on the girls' GPA, motivation, need, and location. Each girl receives a grant of 25,000 CFA (app. US$ 50) to help with school supplies, uniforms, and other school-related costs. The whole application, interview, selection, and awarding of scholarships process is done exclusively by Peace Corps volunteers. Approximately 30 scholarships are awarded annually throughout Senegal, enabling the recipients to have access to continued education and all of the possibilities that come along with it.

After the scholarships were awarded, Sara, Sharon, and Erin were looking for a way to further interact with the girls who had been nominated but didn't win. They chose to do a girls leadership camp to motivate and encourage all of the girls involved in the nomination/scholarship process in their studies. There were a total of 20 girls invited to the camp; 12 girls from Koumpentoum and 8 girls from Kuchaba, a town 30K into the bush from Koumpentoum. The broad goal our camp was simply developing and encouraging life skills such as communication, decision making, thinking, managing emotions, assertiveness, and self-esteem building.

Special thanks to:
Sara's parents in America for having 50 shirts made and sent for the camp.

Front: Girls Leadership Camp, Koumpentoum 2008

Back: Girls Education: To Give Them The Power To Pursue All Of Their Dreams

Thanks also to:
-Some of Sara's previous co-workers for sending 2 whole boxes of notebooks for the girls.

-Katherine Suri and members of The First Presbyterian Church of Mountain View, CA for their generous donation of pens, pencils, and stickers.
All of these donations were greatly appreciated by all involved and allowed us to make gift packages for all of the girls. Thanks for your help!)

On the first day of the camp, the girls arrived and received their gift bundles of t-shirts, pens, pencils, stickers, and notebooks. We then introduced our panel of successful women, which included a midwife, teacher, leader of the girl’s academic excellence club in Koumpentoum, and radio station technician. These women then each talked about the obstacles they had faced, how they were able to overcome them in order to get to where they are now, and their plans for the future. After that, we had a question-answer session with the girls and the women on the panel. I think this discussion was really motivating for the girls because the women on the panel were all from the Koumpentoum region and had similar upbringings. Their success showed the girls that they too have the same chances for personal liberation of unprecedented dimension and opportunity.

The next session was basically an introduction to the topic of gender and was led by Erin, a volunteer whose d

rive and dedication to the development of Senegal makes her not only a great role model for fellow volunteers (aka

me), but also for the girls at our camp. She began by describing the difference between "sex" and "gender roles". We then handed the girls "gender cards" with words such as: control, strength, caring for the sick, violence, work, money, cooking, religion, intelligence, leadership, ect. We told them not to look at their cards until we said "go!" at which time they were to tape their cards in what they thought to be the appropriate area on a board we had made that had "Female" and "Male" on different sides.

She then asked the group if everyone agreed on the placement of the cards, which sparked debate among participants regarding how the culture views certain activities in terms of gender. After asking the opinions of all participants, most of the cards were eventually moved to the area in between "Male" and "Female," an area that nobody had even originally thought to be an option when they originally decided where to put their cards.

Erin ended the session by having the girls list some of the gender roles expected of men and women in Senegal. They then discussed challenges to current gender roles and ways to foster change within the community and culture. I think it was a really great session and helped the girls to realize that gender is determined by culture- it is how the community wants you to behave and think based on whether you are a man or a woman. Complete changes in attitudes about these issues probably didn't happen from this session, but it at least formed a base for the beginning of the girls' thought processes around these issues and how they affect their lives and futures.

After this session, Michele, Sara, and I went to pick up lunch and made were laughed at by all of Koumpentoum as we walked from the cook's house to the community center we were using for the camp. White girls with bowls on their heads are always an entertaining sight for Senegalese people.

For the last session of the day we showcased Elle Travaille, Elle Vit! (She Works, She Lives!), a documentary produced by Peace Corps v

olunteers highlighting achievements made by five women from poor families. The objective of the film is to promote, among young Senegalese girls, the idea that it is possible for everybody to succeed, regardless of their family’s financial situation. USAID loaned us a projector and it was so amazing to watch the girls- many of whom have never watched or seen a TV- see this documentary. It is very well put together and interesting and I would highly recommend it to any of you all who are interested in this topic. It's in French but there are English subtitles, and the website is http://www.peaceonlyproductions.blogspot.com/.

After the video, we had dinner and then had a dance party, which was lots of fun for all involved; Senegalese people love to dance and also love forcing American's to join in, and then laughing at/with us for our lack of rhythm.

The second day was amazing because Awa, who is the culture/homestay trainer for the Peace Corps in Thies, came all the way to Koumpentoum to lead sessions for the day. I cannot explain how much I personally love Awa.

We have a special bond; she helped me through some issues I had during training, installed me into my village. But my love for Awa is beside the point. She is one of the women featured in Elle Travaille, Elle Vit! , and it just a great role model and motivator for young women.

She led sessions on developing life skills such as good communication and negotiating, making appropriate decisions, thinking through the consequences, and delivering assertive messages. She split the girls into groups and gave them hypothetical situations- a father refusing to let his daughter continue going to school and arranging an early marriage, rape by a family member, ect. - and had them perform skits based on how they would deal with the given problem. These skits and following discussions really helped the girls develop critical thinking skills and taught them a number of alternatives in dealing with difficult situations.

After Awa's sessions, we had a recognition ceremony for all of the girls at the camp. We invited their families, gendarmes (police), teachers, principals, religious

leaders, an

d other community members. Erin led most of the ceremony and began by thanking everyone for their support and talking about the importance of girls’ education and empowerment. She then recognized each of the girls, and then two of the groups with the best skits preformed their skits for the audience, followed by all the girls singing a song about women's empowerment. After all of that, some of the teachers and community members made brief speeches and thanked us for our work with the girls and just thanked us over and over again, then thanked the Peace Corps, then thanked America, and one teacher even ended his speech with, "viva America! Viva Obama!" which I thought was a nice touch.

It was just really nice to hear

all of these important people say thank yo

u to us and that they appreciated our work. It's just not something you hear very often here, and even though I didn't even play that big of a role in the whole camp, it was still the most heartwarming, "maybe I am doing some good here, after all" feeling. I can't really explain it but I really think it's true that as a volunteer, you get just as much as you give out of your work.