Community Workshops

Improving the Community 100 Girls at a Time

When you teach girls, you educate a community. Educated boys might leave their communities, whereas educated girls are more likely to stay and become  mothers who encourage their children, especially daughters, to go to school.  Quality girls’ education empowers by giving them choices, alleviates poverty and yields great returns in socio-economics, health, population and politics. Girls’ education is a driving force against poverty leading to increased income for girls themselves, but also for nations as a whole. Better-educated girls who become women have smaller, healthier families with lower infant and maternal mortality rates.

Secondary education helps even more because women learn how to use health services, improving nutrition and sanitation, and taking advantage of their own increased earning capability. In addition, girls who receive a quality education marry later when they’re better able to bear and care for their children. Educated girls are more likely to stand up for themselves and resist violence, and as women more likely to participate in political discussions, meetings and decision making.

More than half the world’s 58 million out-of-school children are girls and a  large number of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to forced early marriage and the harmful practice of FGM (female genital mutilation) too many girls are left behind, marginalized and unaware of their basic human rights. Only 23% of poor, rural girls complete their primary education in sub-Saharan Africa. It is for this reason that we find it critical to provide workshops for girls during school holidays, also known as “cutting season” when girls are at a very high risk of undergoing FGM. 

We also include boys and men in our advocacy. It is important to educate them as well about protecting girls and women from harm. 

Workshop Curriculum:

* FGM
* Child Marriage * Gender Equality
* Sexual & Reproductive Health and Righs
* Leadership Skills
* Teen Pregnancy
* HIV/AIDS & STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases)
* The Importance of Formal Education
* Self-Awareness, Self-Confidence
* Community Service
* Peer Pressure
* Child Rights
* Health & Sanitation
* Preserving positive aspects of the Samburu and Maasai cultures