GraceAnne Heater
Rutsiro District, Western Province
About a week ago, the Peace Corps Rwanda GAD Committee wrapped up the project I am most proud of during my Peace Corps service. We started the project in January, called Let Girls Work, in alignment with Michelle Obama's Let Girls Learn Program and Rwanda's Gender and Development Goals. The purpose of the program was to educate girls about the professional opportunities available to them outside of villages and give them the tools they need to reach their professional goals and become active and contributing members to the development of Rwanda. The program was broken into three phases: a series of lessons, a local mentorship day, and a weekend workshop in the capital of Rwanda.
In the first phase, PCVs taught students a series of five lessons about professionalism. The students learned about career paths, gained important knowledge about applications with CV writing and interview skills, and were given tools for success through goal setting and personal savings. After the lessons, the students who attended these classes wrote essays for phase two, and three girls were selected to continue on to the next phase.
In the second phase, PCVs took three students to the their regional town to shadow a successful woman in the field of the student's chosen profession. This allowed students to experience the jobs first-hand and learn about jobs available at the regional level - in a larger town than their village. PCVs were in charge of finding a mentor to teach and motivate each student, and after a morning of shadowing, the students and mentors shared their experience over lunch.
After the mentorship day, students gave a poster presentation at school, and a single girl was selected from each school to continue on to phase three.
The third phase took place in Rwanda's capital city, Kigali. Sixteen PCVs and one girl from each school traveled to the capital for a weekend workshop with a new set of mentors and guest speakers. These girls were exposed to high-level jobs in their sector of interest and taught lessons to continue their professional development. The weekend started with a dinner meeting between students and their mentors. We worked with the Makerere Alumni Group to secure these mentors, ranging from doctors and authors to bakers and craft makers. The mentors were just as excited about the project as our students, and they insisted the mentorship would be an ongoing relationship, not just a single meeting.
The next day, the students went off to shadow their mentors. Their activities included checking their blood type in a laboratory, writing a short story, making jewelry, helping operate boutiques and shops, and working with lawyers and accountants.
After mentoring, everyone met at the Kigali Public Library, where the girls got to debrief about their day and try fruit smoothies.
The following day, students learned how to tell their own story from PCV Sarah Howard and learned about public speaking from PCV Michael Heater. They then went to the Akilah Institute for Women where they were given a tour of the school and lessons about confidence, growth mindset, career guidance and basic computer knowledge from five young women attending the school.
The girls were given an American-style brown bag lunch, complete with apples and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
After a tour of Kigali, PCVs, students, and the guides from Akilah joined together for a team-building sports activity - bowling! I loved seeing how close the students bonded with each other, the mentors, and the Akilah students and how excited they were for every single pin drop.
It was incredibly inspiring to show our students role models who have succeeded after overcoming the same obstacles they face, and to be able to bring them to parts of their country they would otherwise struggle to travel to. This event required a lot of work from each PCV involved, and I am amazed at everyone's dedication to the project. With such success, we in GAD Rwanda hope to make this an annual event.
