Give to Girls All Over the World.

If you have visited this blog before, you are familiar with LitWorld’s work in empowering young women in countries such as Kenya, Iraq, Ghana, Liberia, and in various locations in the U.S.

This Holiday season, we have decided to engage our international community in a gift that lasts a lifetime:  launching five new Girls Clubs sites throughout the world. LitWorld Girls Clubs for literacy provides mentoring, literacy & leadership workshops, health & safety information, and lessons on female empowerment & the importance of education to girls in vulnerable communities. We equip these young women to become literacy leaders, thus allowing them to be more self-sufficient, educated, and empowered.

Please visit our Global Giving page on how you can give your gift to girls , and please tell your friends to pass the word along. You can also watch our video below, and go to this link for more information!

Introducing the “Venus Girls Club in Erbil”!

Girls Clubs in Iraq have officially launched in Erbil,with 13 young women in participation! When the girls were asked what to expect from the program, they replied that they expected Girls Club to “empower our personality in the right way, have an opportunity to know more about others”. One of the other participants also offered, “I have goal to  achieve, and I hope this program will help me get on the right steps toward this goal”.

When we asked the girls about their goals , their replies were as follows:
- To be a journalist not only on Iraq level, but on the world level, in order to let the world hear an Iraqi woman’s voice.
-To be a police officer, in order to enforce and apply the  law.
-To  explore the world by traveling and learning the people’s customs and traditions.
-To be an Arabic teacher in order to help other Kurdish people to know the language of their partners( Arab people) in Iraq.

The girls felt so empowered, they elected club officers to create a more formal organization of the club and spread its mission even further to other young women. They’ve even officially named the club as the Venus Girls Club in Erbil.

The girls exchanged their stories, and were so pleased to have the right of speech and to have the freedom to express their ideas. Our second meeting is set for the earlier part of 2011. More to come soon!

As reported by Girls Club Erbil Leader, Saadia Hassoon

Girls Club Kibera is on a Roll!

The Girls Clubs of Kibera have been on a roll all year, participating in numerous uplifting projects thanks to the leadership of Joscelyn O. Truitt and Jeff Okoth. The photo above shows the girls with a remarkable quilt made especially for them by the Children of Kibera intern, Jackie Espana, after the girls participated in knitting lessons. The fabric in the quilt are made from their first pieces, a reminder of all their time spent together during lessons!

Aside from their quilting project, the girls in Kibera have also been discussing peaceful tactics for conflict resolution, and dialoguing about peer pressure and self-respect. Talks on health and hygiene have also been important topics, resulting in their story project, “Nesla’s Dillema”.  As you might remember from our previous post, the Kibera girls have also been exploring ideas of esteem, and celebrating the multifaceted beauty of black women through their photo shoot project, “A Girl Is…”.

We can’t wait to see the new adventures the upcoming year has in store for the Kibera girls. We thank Joscelyn and Jeff for their inspiring leadership in Kenya!

Nesla’s Dilemma: Stories Written by Red Rose Girls Club Members

Nesla’s Dilemma is a combination of stories written by Red Rose Girls Club members. After a series of talks and lessons on hygiene and the female menstrual cycle, the group decided to write about our periods. Some girls decided to write a fictional story and others recorded their thoughts on the issue.

Using bits of each girls stories or reflections, their facilitators combined them all into one story. Nesla is a poor girl who lives in rural Kenya. One day, she suddenly gets her period and is unsure of what to do. But, after an enlightening talk with her mother, she learns that she is experiencing a normal change. However, Nesla’s family is too poor to afford buying sanitary pads.

Her mother finds a Girls Club for Nesla to attend and it is there that she receives sanitary pads. The pads allow her to be in school every day so is able to finish and excel in her education. This story reflects how the Girls Club affects its members, as many girls are not able to afford pads nor are they comfortable talking about their periods with a mom or aunt. This story is informational, as well, and the Red Rose girls hope to use their stories to inform other girls about menstruation and how to handle it.

LitWorld Girls Club Harlem Sends a Video Message to Accra, Ghana:

A few weeks ago, the girls of Accra, Ghana, sent the Harlem Girls a letter to introduce themselves. Instead of writing a letter back, we decided to make it a little more personal and create a video, so that the girls can have a more interactive way of communicating, even across continents.

Hello from Harlem, Accra! We hope to meet you soon

Virtual Training with Kenya: LitWorld Embraces the Future!

Live from the Red Rose School in Kenya

Because we are a global organization working on an international platform, we aren’t always able to meet with our partners face to face. Well, actually, yes we can! We at LitWorld love technology and the way it allows us to connect, work, and build together, no matter the geography or time zone. This morning, LitWorld Executive Director Pam Allyn in NYC led a virtual training on the Girls Clubs for Literacy Project to the teachers at the Red Rose School in Kenya.

It is truly incredible what technology can do to bring the world closer.

And even within the US, technology helps keeps our national staff connected every week! No matter how far, we can communicate on real time. Wow.

 

LitWorld Girls Club Launches in Erbil, Iraq!

Young women from the Together organization in Erbil, Iraq

As you may remember from earlier this season, we at LitWorld launched a campaign to benefit students in Iraq called “Change is in the Air”, a campaign to send school supplies to Iraqi children. Our efforts to build with Iraq doesn’t stop there. We’ve also partnered with an organization called Together to launch a Girls Club in Erbil, Iraq. Recently, we got a chance to interview our Erbil Girls Club Leader, Saadia Hassoon, so she can properly introduce the Girls Club. Read on to see what it’s all about!

1.)What is the learning environment like at Erbil? Can you describe what the schools and classrooms are like for the children there?

There are three types of learning environment in Erbil, I will describe them below.

*Private Schools (one American school –Shwaifat ):  This is very expensive, and only rich people can send their children. They are very good schools, and the teaching language is English for all levels.

*Less Expensive Private Schools (Turkish school- Ishiq,): The teaching language also English, as well as Turkish. Also Media school is a good private school.

*Typical Public Schools –These types of schools accept only high scoring students, and are also very good schools, with no fees from students.

*Schools for talent students, only one school in Erbil, one in Mosel, and more than one in Baghdad.

Then there are many other public schools with many needs like:

Bad bathroom facilities and a lack of healthy drinking water, no labs for physics, chemistry, biology, language, painting, music, or art, and no entertainment activities. Teachers who teach here are in need of new training in their teaching practices.

2.)What are some of the greatest needs of the girls in Iraq? What are some of their most pressing challenges?

Girls in rural areas present the greatest needs. Their greatest challenges are illiteracy, tribal habits, violence, and early marriage, which prevents them from continuing the studying  process.

Among these, the most pressing challenge is illiteracy, because we realize that when we combat illiteracy, then we can go forward and fight for other women’s rights.