GLOW is for the way we lead our world

         Last week we gathered girls that were as young as 10 up to 15 years old to come together, become friends, and learn a little more about what it means to be leaders in their communities. The camp is called GLOW camp which means Girls Leading Our World. It is important to know that Ghana is still in the true meaning of the term a developing country but honestly it is much more developed then I thought it would be before arriving here for my 2 years.  With the new age internet cell phones and texting it seems like we are in America. I think that it is even more important to educate young girls in this development stage because they can see women that have already made it to important powerful jobs. There are many role models for these girls to look up to but it is still a struggle for most of them to finish education up to the senior secondary school (high school). There are countless obstacles that they face day to day. Most families do some sort of farming which somehow seems to always interfere with exams and studying for the end term.  Along with pressure from the family to help around the house and farm it is social pressures from the community that tell the girls that they won’t make it and t just stay at home, then there are the boys that only encourage the communities perspective and try to take advantage of stressed out confused young ladies. 

        In our communities was having a unique opportunity to get to know young girls that have that extra something special. These girls already have it in their mind that they are going to do and be something great and are optimistic to make it happen.  So we bring these girls together for three full days of leadership, education, and fun activities. We brought in speakers to talk to the girls about women leaders in Ghana, a nurse to speak on feminine care and family planning, and an inspirational woman that works for Peace Corps to share personal stories, the struggles and the triumphs.  The PCVs that were involved also lead sessions on HIV/AIDS awareness, education, and stigma reduction. A session was also dedicated to malaria prevention where we showed the girls how to use bed nets properly and taught facts about the disease.

        My favorite parts of the camp were when we were filling time or doing craft activities. The young leaders learned how to tie-dye, which in my eyes is a very important leadership quality. They also learned how to make “gods eyes” the yarn and stick craft, and they absolutely loved making water sachet coin purses. For a more educational craft project we taught them how to track their period and fertility on bracelets made from different colored beads.  It might not be a craft activity but we did some science experiments with the girls including the baking soda balloon experiment and telling if a egg is hard boiled or not and a talk on robots. It was important to show the girls that science can be fun and applicable. Many of the girls that came to the camp are in the focus of home economics in school (its kinda like a major but in high school) so even getting a little bit more interest in the sciences could really help them in school.

        You might have seen on my facebook page photos of people falling onto other people. This was our attempt at teaching the trust fall concept. We wanted to get a feeling of trust throughout the girls on the first day to carry throughout the camp so we started with the partner trust fall and once the girls got the concept we moved on to the scary chair trust fall. This was definitely more difficult for the girls to do. The trust was not there at first. They kept sticking their butts down first and trying to sit on the girls catching. The concept of keeping strait the whole time and arms by your side was hard to grasp so a PCV had to show them a couple times and they started to get it.  Along with the theme of trust we also wanted to incorporate teamwork.  The perfect game for that is the human knot. It is only possible to untie the knot if everybody works together because everybody has a different perspective on the knot it’s difficult to have only one person doing all the action and by working together you can see their personalities coming out and taking shape. 

         I really think that this camp went well. We had a couple of break throughs with the girls that warmed our hearts as well as made us want to help even more. The girls really became friends throughout the groups and not just in their school groups which hopefully they learned a little something from each other. We had three deaf girls come from Tema with a Volunteer that teaches them art and learned so much from them. Not only did they teach us a little sign language but how to interact with each other on another level. These girls were so animated with their facial expressions that you knew exactly what they were thinking.  I think a great moment for all the volunteers there was when they received a prize at the end for remembering the volunteers name signs not only did she remember our signs from the first day but she was so so happy to get a cool prize and the smile on her face was the most beautiful smile.  

        Even though I think we were all happy that the stress of planning and putting on this camp was over at the end we all had a blast and made some great memories.  Already we have to start thinking of ways to make next year better and keep all the good stuff. It will be a tough one to top but hey we are the eastern region we can definitely do it!