Tag Archives: leadership

The Girls of South Sudan Have Exciting New Programs Coming Up

As my first post on Project Education South Sudan, I cannot even begin to share how inspiring speaking with one of the directors, Carol Rinehart, and learning about these girls has been. Whenever we have a Skype date scheduled I anxiously rush home from work to hear more about what these amazing girls are up to and learn about Carol’s travels to South Sudan as well. Though these girls have faced hardships recently, with violence close to the school, they anxiously await being able to go back to school at the end of April.

Meet some of the inspiring young ladies at Project Education South Sudan.

The girls have much to look forward to when they return to school, including finding out the results of their exams that they recently took. Last year 17 out of 23 girls graduated from primary school, in a country where just 0.8% of girls ever even attend primary school. There are also a few new amazing programs in the works that the girls will soon be able to immerse themselves in fully. Carol shared with me the following details about each of the areas that this new leadership program structure will cover:

The Girls’ Leadership Development (GLD) program is designed to support the education of young girls at Ayak Anguei Girls Primary Boarding School. The program will focus on a Student Leadership Program enhancing and educating young girls’ understanding of political participation, developing conflict resolution skills through the development of a more comprehensive student prefect school government program, developing decision-making and teambuilding skills, and supporting a healthier and more productive lifestyle for girls and their families through female health education.

Student Leadership Program: is to be implemented in Ayak Anguei Girls’ Primary School and will comprise of several learning components. Each component will integrate a holistic approach utilizing conflict resolution strategies. The development of this program draws upon CARE’s competency-based approach to leadership development, which focuses on developing a girl’s “power within” through the following characteristics: voice/assertion, decision-making, self-confidence, organization, and vision/ability to motivate others. By developing these competencies, girls are positioned to “gain public legitimacy” by developing social networks with other girls and community members and taking a civic action in the community. The student community civic action will be the implementation of a school community garden to demonstrate the CARE competency-based leadership components. It will include teacher and head master/matron leadership development, school prefect leaders & students, PTA, community elders, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Education.

Feminine Hygiene HIV/AIDS Education Program: is to be implemented at Ayak Anguei Girls Primary School with a focus to cut down on girls’ absenteeism due to monthly bleeding. Following a 2010-2012 distribution of reusable sanitary pads to girls, and completing a two year field study to measure the impact of pad use, there has shown measureable success in increased attendance. The implementation of the program consists of three educational components: 1) A reproductive health curriculum that addresses feminine hygiene and reproductive rights, 2) HIV/AIDS education, and 3) The implementation of a vocational training program that teaches girls how to sew their own sanitary pads and bring them to market.

The girls are incredibly excited to get back to school and start on these great opportunities that Project Education South Sudan is working on. I know that I cannot wait to hear more and more updates on how they are going and to tell all of you very soon!

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Interview with Lilian, Prefect at Kibera

 

Lilian, a first grader at Kibera, wants to be an artist when she grows up...we think she already is!

Lilian, a first grader at Kibera, wants to be an artist when she grows up...we think she already is!

And now, for the third and final installment of our introduction to the student leaders (see the first two here and here) at the Kibera School for Girls. As a quick refresher, Kibera recently started a new leadership program for its students. In it, the school calls on different first, second and third graders to serve as prefects, deputy head girls and head girls. Lilian, a first grader at Kibera, completed her term as prefect this year and I’m excited to introduce you to her. She may be young, but not for a second does she let that stand in the way of her ability to look out for and work with her peers. Between her desire to be an artist and her excitement in being a leader, she clearly channels creativity and confidence. I’m excited to see what Lilian accomplishes during her time at Kibera and beyond!

Can you tell us a little bit about your ‘typical day’ as prefect? What kind of responsibilities do you have?

When I am in class and the people are there, if they are making noise I tell them to keep quiet. If they are making noise, I tell them that they need to stop.

How do you work together with the deputy head girls and head girl?

I work with them – if somebody is misbehaving I take them to the deputy head girl and head girl.

What’s your favorite part of the prefect job?

My favorite part of the job is when people are making noise, then I take them to the teacher or headmistress.

What is the hardest part about being prefect?

When people are making noise, and I have to tell them to keep quiet and they make noise again.

If you had to give a piece of advice to next week’s prefect, what would you tell them?

I will tell her that I was the prefect and I want you to lead people nicely.

How did it make you feel to be selected prefect?

I felt happy and I was excited.

What did you learn about your school when you were prefect that you didn’t know before?

If someone is misbehaving, you should take them to the deputy head girl or head girl.

On top of being prefect, you have lots of classes to take too! What’s your favorite part of the school day?

My favorite part of the school year is the Summer Institute. My favorite subject is art. I like to draw and make dolls using lassos.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be an artist.

 

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Interview with Christian, Deputy Head Girl at Kibera

Check out Christian's deputy head girl pin!

Check out Christian's deputy head girl pin!

We’ve already written about the Kibera School for Girls’ new leadership program through the eyes of Natasha, a third grader who did a phenomenal job as head girl for the month. It was great to see all of the positive encouragement sent her way, and it makes me even more excited to introduce you now to Christian, a second grade student at KSG. As deputy head girl, Christian was also selected to lead her classmates for the month. She worked with that month’s head girl to help their fellow students follow the rules and shine as examples of respect and friendship. Like the deputy head girl, Christian was pleased to share her experience and deputy head girl observations through a speech presented to her classmates.

Christian dreams of defending those in Kibera through a law degree, and loves that being deputy head girl allowed her to make sure her classmates “love each other and help each other to do the work.” Read more about her experience being deputy head girl below!

Christian shares, in her own words, her experience being deputy head girl:

Can you tell us a little bit about your ‘typical day’ as deputy head girl? What kind of responsibilities do you have?

I behave well, I make sure the girls go to the hall when the come to school. I have them come with handkerchiefs, and to have good manners.

How do you work together with the head girl and prefects?

We love each other and we help each other to do the work.

What’s your favorite part of the deputy head girl job?

My favorite thing about being the deputy head girl is that the deputy head girl is the one who takes care of the school.

What is the hardest part about being deputy head girl?

Sometimes some people are hard to work with because they disturb you. They run in the hall when you tell them to stop it. And they fight and pour water along the corridor. Sometimes you get annoyed because they disturb.

If you had to give a piece of advice to the next deputy head girl, what would you tell them?

If somebody does not listen to them they need to find a way to make that person understand them.

How did it make you feel to be selected deputy head girl?

I was feeling happy because you were standing with the prefects.

What did/will you tell your classmates during your speech?

I said that they should have respect and obey the prefects and not to fight.

What did you learn about your school when you were deputy head girl that you didn’t know before?

I’ve learned that the deputy head girl has some challenges.

On top of being deputy head girl, you have lots of classes to take too! What’s your favorite part of the school day?

My favorite part of the day is when the girls behave well and do not disturb and not to give me challenges.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be a lawyer to defend the people in Kibera.

Isn’t she cute? Did any of you have leadership roles when you were in grade school?

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Interview with Natasha, Head Girl at Kibera

Natasha, a third grader at Kibera, shares her thoughts on being head girl with She's the First blog readers

As I think back to my elementary school days, I remember one of the highlights was getting to be a safety in sixth grade. Considered the highest of honors among my peers, serving as a safety meant getting out of class a few minutes early at the end of the day so I could lead my fellow bus-mates to bus #42. I made sure everyone got on and off safely, and that everybody stayed in line and sat in the right row on the playground. I proudly wore my fluorescent yellow safety badge and took great pride in my near flawless track record.

Because of my fond memories of “safety days,” I was delighted to hear that the Kibera School for Girls recently introduced a program very similar to the one I experienced. Though the mark of distinction is different (they opted for the more subtle pin instead of overly-flashy yellow badges), Kibera’s new program is similar in that it fosters leadership and listening among its students. Each month, a third grade student is selected to serve as head girl and a second grade student serves as deputy head girl. Each month, a different girl from each class is picked to serve as class prefect. Together, these girls make sure their classmates follow school rules and encourage their peers to show kindness and respect to one another. At the end of the month, each head girl and deputy head girl delivers a speech to their classmates.

This post, and the next two posts I share, will feature a head girl, deputy head girl, and class prefect. For this feature’s debut, I’m happy to introduce Natasha, a third grader at Kibera whose favorite parts of the school day include “playing together, sharing ideas, and playing games.” She used her position to inspire respect, hard work, and love among teachers, classmates, and friends. After reading about Natasha’s experience as a head girl, share your support with her in the comments below!

Natasha shares, in her own words, her experience being head girl:

Can you tell us a little bit about your ‘typical day’ as head girl? What kind of responsibilities do you have?

When the girls have gone to play, I make sure that they have not gone to the shops or removed their shoes, that they hear the bell when it rings, and that all the toys are in the box.

How do you work together with the deputy head girl and prefects?

We work together when I tell some of the prefects to group the classes and make sure that nobody makes noise, everyone listens, and all of the things that she has should be neat. Her room should be clean and she should have a handkerchief.

What’s your favorite part of the head girl job?

My favorite part is when I tell the girls to be neat because I’m sure that I’m neat and to come early and to do the right thing at the right place and at the right time.

What is the hardest part about being head girl job?

When you tell the small girls something and they can’t hear. The girls don’t know who I am when I tell them not to remove their shoes. Sometimes I tell them to go and lay down and they don’t so they go to their teacher and they tell them. Now they know I’m the head girl and that they should do the right thing at the right time.

If you had to give a piece of advice to next month’s head girl, what would you tell them?

Work hard and you should work as a team together with the deputy and you should respect them and show them the right place at the right time and you should make them come to school early and be obedient.

How did it make you feel to be selected head girl?

I didn’t know I was so surprised! I was worried and I didn’t know and when I remembered I went to look after the girls.

What did/will you tell your classmates during your speech?

I tell them you should respect teachers, your classmates, and you should show to your friend love. You should make sure you come to school early and clean.

What did you learn about the school when you were prefect that you didn’t know before?

I’ve learned that when you come to school, there are some people who are neat and respect their teachers, follow instructions, and respect their classmates. I learned on my first day how I was proud, I looked at the girls and was proud to be the head girl.

What makes you most proud of your school?

They are girls, they show respect, and they play together as a school. They show teachers respect and obedience. If I give them the ball they know how to return it where I found it. I like how we have a playground and a clinic – how if we are sick we go there. I like how the visitors come and how our teachers handle our problems if we have them and how they teach us.

On top of being head girl, you have lots of classes to take too! What’s your favorite part of the school day?

Playing together, sharing ideas, playing games.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Air hostess

 

Stay tuned for our next interview with second grade deputy head girl, Christian!

 

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League of Extraordinary Women: Let’s Take Action!

Editor-in-chief Bob Safian wrote a hand-written note! Thank you, @RSafian.

We have some news that will rock your Twitterverse this morning…She’s the First was named to Fast Company‘s League of Extraordinary Women! I am sure you realize that what She’s the First is today is more than I ever initially dreamed it would or could be…and that’s because of YOU, our donors and key players on our volunteer team. Among them, Christen Brandt, Director of International Operations; Cynthia Hellen, co-founder of our GIRLS WHO ROCK fundraiser; our first-ever Chairwoman Karen Karpowich and Board Directors; the founders and directors of our partner schools (my true heroes)…and countless others.

This high-profile recognition of She’s the First pushes me, our first full-time employee as of this May, to work even harder to be worthy of keeping company with Hilary Clinton, Oprah, and First Lady Michelle Obama…and especially the woman who created the Girl Effect, Maria Eitel of Nike, seen on the cover of Fast Company. (Read the bottom of this post to see why this brings us full circle!).

Our listing among Fast Company‘s “Heroic Projects” proves a bunch of ordinary people, including myself, can join forces and together make an impact that is truly extraordinary. Now let’s show what more our Millennial social media muscles can do!

  • Tweet: We can make this issue dedicated to women leaders and girls’ global welfare the best-selling, most-shared story package of the YEAR. Fast Company and editor Bob Safian have asked us to tweet with hashtag #ImWithTheLeague. You, yes YOU, are with the League if you support She’s the First! So get tweeting, because this is what we do best!

 

The @AAHUganda girls in print!

  • Take Action: You will notice that the photo on page 87 of Fast Company is of girls from our partner school in Uganda, the Arlington Academy of Hope. I ask that you contribute to a summer fundraising campaign to sponsor girls at AAH, right here on the From NYC to AAH page started by our teammate Carla Blumenthal. She and her roommates, Taylor and Allison, are taking a self-funded trip to the school on July 20 and want to sponsor 20 girls along the way!

 

I’m enthralled looking ahead to the future of She’s the First! But I couldn’t help but look back to the past: I dug up the very first time I ever put She’s the First in writing, to Christen Brandt in a Facebook message, dated May 13, 2009, when I was 23-years-old. Christen, thank you for not being overwhelmed. :)

At the MCF Academy we’re building in Liberia, I want to launch a program that teaches everything you described should be stressed. I had the idea of creating a campaign – so it could be applied globally, like the Girl Effect (thegirleffect.org) – called She’s the First. Fitting to launch in Liberia, since it’s the nation of Africa’s first female president. I outlined the mission of it below, if you’re interested in learning more…now I’m just figuring out how to create a video PSA that could virally get the awareness out there…I want to put a dream team of young people (like you!) together to create this…

..oh my gosh, just got an idea!! I’m going to flesh it out then can we talk soon? i would love to include you in this…and other NYWICI girls I’ve met recently who speak to the same goals/beliefs. Where are you living now? p.s. I’ve never been to DC and would love to visit you there this summer on a weekend!

ok, here’s the She’s the First thoughts (I bought shesthefirst.org too!) hope this isn’t too overwhelming!

Mission:

Empower girls from third world and underserved communities to break cultural and economic barriers. Give them the skills, awareness, and education to realize a dream, even if it has never been done before in their family or world history. Inspire girls to give back to younger “sisters,” so that as the first to achieve something, they also are not the last.

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Shanti Bhavan Students Head to Japan

The 4 Shanti Bhavan finalists: Rahul, Akash, Catsiya and Yeshwini

Have you ever dreamt of spending a summer in Japan? At Shanti Bhavan, 7th-9th graders have a great summer opportunity to attend ISAK, a leadership summer camp near Tokyo, on full scholarship. The summer school program is offered entirely in English and emphasizes diversity, leadership and creativity. Students attending ISAK (which stands for International School of Asia, Karuizawa) get to participate in a rigorous curriculum that includes a variety of courses from Science, Math and Literature to International Negotiation, Theater and Non-verbal Communication, Sports/Yoga, Music and Japanese as well as various leadership and diversity seminars. ISAK focuses on creating a diverse student body from countries all over Asia and the four Shanti Bhavan students who attended last year were praised by the staff for adding a very unique perspective to the group.

We have no doubt that this year will be the same! For the past few months, 11 of the best 7th-9th graders at Shanti Bhavan went through a rigorous application process to apply to the program. In order to be considered, the candidates had to write two essays, answer several short answer questions and get letters of recommendation from their teachers; sounds a lot like college applications to me! The pool has now been narrowed down to four students: 8th graders Rahul, Akash, Catsiya, and 7th grader Yeshwini (We sponsored her with tie-dye cupcakes!) who will have to go through a series of Skype interviews with the ISAK faculty. If chosen to go, these students will be leaving India for the first time and experiencing their first-ever airplane ride. It will be an eye-opening experience to interact with and learn from children in other countries and gain confidence by traveling to a foreign country. We wish Rahul, Akash, Catsiya and Yeshwini the best of luck!

To learn more about ISAK, check out their website!

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What Happened at the Kisa Leadership Summit?

Group shot! Ashley with the Kisa Scholars during her visit to Tanzania in July

Group shot: Ashley with the Kisa Scholars during her visit to Tanzania in July

Attendees, performers, and donors from our first GIRLS WHO ROCK benefit concert, June 10 in NYC, won’t want to miss this update!

As you know, your support sponsored Elizabeth, Grace, and Happiness in the Kisa Project, a secondary school educational program AfricAid runs in Tanzania, which also enrolls the girls in computer and leadership training. Our Scholars email us messages at least once a month, and we post them here to the blog for you to comment on, and then we relay those messages back to them. Right here on shesthefirst.org, we are so awed to watch a two-year cross-cultural exchange and digital storytelling project unravel, all from one rockin’ night in New York City.

Kisa Scholars present their Kisanet business plan to a group of 30 parents, teachers, guests, and heads of school.

There are some BIG updates with the Kisa Project that recently came our way from founder Ashley Shuyler! She just returned to Colorado from 10 weeks in Tanzania, where she ran a 10-day leadership summit with the girls. The girls had a challenge: start a sustainable service project or business that they would take back to their school communities. They had to write a business plan, create a budget and a marketing plan, and present all this to 30 parents, teachers, and heads of school. Ashley says the end product was remarkable. The Scholars chose to teach computer classes at a low cost to students and community members who otherwise couldn’t afford to take such a course. Ashley writes:

Their reasoning behind choosing a computer-based project was compelling: they identified that, although they have little capital, they do have an incredible resource in the Kisa-installed computer labs at their partner schools; and, at the same time, their research revealed a great need for increased computer literacy in Tanzania – not only do most jobs now require some familiarity with computers, but additionally, the Tanzanian government recently mandated that all college applications be submitted online, even when most students have never used a computer. I couldn’t have been prouder when, on the final day of the workshop, the students launched their inaugural computer class to a group of street kids and young Maasai women from a local school – all of whom left the class chattering excitedly about their new-found knowledge skills. This, from a group of girls who themselves had never touched a computer before becoming part of Kisa.

We have to say with special pride that in Ashley’s email to AfricAid’s supporters, she singled out one girl’s story from this leadership workshop — and it was Grace, one of our girls! Here’s what she said:

One student, Grace, approached me early on in the workshop. Although she was the athlete and jokester of the group, I realized immediately that she had a big vision that she demanded to be taken seriously. She told me that, ever since she was young, she had felt an irresistible need to help orphans and street children – but that her brothers and family had simply laughed at her when she expressed this goal to them. She told me that she had given up hope – both for her dream and for herself – but that everything changed when she was selected for the Kisa Project.  She asked me one evening not long before the end of our time together, “Do you really think I can do it? Can I really help street kids?” When I told her that every person in Kisa was behind her, she revealed that she had already begun making plans to start a small business, through which she would donate a portion of her profits to support street children, and she was beginning to research how to adopt orphans – so that she could adopt two of them in later life. I hugged her with the deepest of admiration. (If you’re interested, you can watch a digital story created by Grace and her dreams here.)

Ashley also sent us individual feedback on each of our three girls, which we will share with you in an upcoming post this week. Thanks for reading through this lengthy one — but wasn’t every word part of a big, beaming smile on your face now?

* More photos from AfricAid on Facebook *

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