Activities On International Girls Days by Pamela B.

Pamela Boulware
H3 - Kayonza District, Eastern Province

    On October 11, 2012, Rwanda celebrated its first International Girls Day. International Girls Day or Day of the Girls is a day to celebrate and encourage young girls to be strong as they endure the struggles of daily life, i.e., peer pressure, identity and poverty. All while embracing the woman they would like to become, in their educational achievements, personal life, future careers and in their community.

                       EDC/ Akazi Kanoze’s Accelerated Learning Program has 100 hundred students in the Eastern province of Rwanda, with over 50 girls. On October 11^th, 47 girls, ages 16-22, from four different locations in Kayonza, enthusiastically gathered at Amizero Training Center to celebrate the strength within themselves. The girls spent the day learning about goal setting and self-esteem.  

                      The first half of the day, the girls learned about the importance of setting goals and following through with the steps of achieving their goals. They wrote about their long term and short term goals, and then discussed what may hinder them from achieving their goals and what will help in the achievement of their goals. As each girl stood in front of their peers and talked about their individual short or long-term goal, emotions ran high as girl after girl expressed the challenges they would face and how they would overcome those challenges was nothing short of empowering. In that, each girl understood the others and their challenges but to say them aloud really made the girls believe that their challenges could be overcome and they could achieve anything. 

                       The second half of the day focused on self-esteem as they watched a movie entitled ‘Sinurigisha’ (I am Not For Sale). It is a movie based on the solicitation of improper actions from young girls or boys from older men (Sugar Daddies) or women (Sugar Mammies) for gifts, food or money. After watching the film a discussion was held on their thoughts about Sugar Daddies and how a person’s actions may affect their daily life; getting pregnant, contracting HIV/AIDS, social stigmas and self-esteem.

                        As a collective, the girls decided not to just make celebrating themselves one day out of the year but every day. Pamela H3