Empowering the Girls: Girls’ Youth Leadership Camp

May 24, 2010 | Filed under: Blog | Posted by: urfblog

Over 60 girls between the ages of 12 – 19 participated in the recent Girls’ Camp at Hope Academy between April 30 – May 02, 2010. The camp was intended to provide a safe space to the girls to discuss issues affecting their lives and identify opportunities for personal, educational, leadership, social, and career development. URF always aim to empower young girls and youth in general to take charge of their destiny. The girls had a great time and learned a lot. They will be turning essays abou the camp which we will post on this page.

The kids we’re dealing with come from very poor families in rural villages, 50% of our student population at Hope Academy are orphans, some come from child-headed families, etc. They face challenges of finding tuition – many of then are at risk of dropping out of school, getting maried off at young age, having unwanted pregnancy, or miss school because of lack of sanitary pads.

These are topics, the girls wanted to discuss in the conference. I have grouped them: (from our staff in Uganda)
1. Sex education
-Importance of abstinence
-Problems of early sex
-Early pregnancy
-Dangers of Abortion
-Boyfriends
-Peer pressure
-Early marriages
-Hiv/AIDS, STDS signs/ symptoms
-Menstruation
-Candida
-Cross generational sex
2. Hygiene
-Personal hygiene
-Provision of pads
3. Discipline
-Consequences of bad behavior
-How girls should behave
4. Counseling
5. Business education
6. Illiteracy (what one can do to make their lives better even if they are not educated)
7. Confidence
-Public Speaking
-Self esteem
-Leadership