Hi friends, family, readers, and strangers who happen to be stalking my blog! I'm writing today not to tell you about how I'm counting down until my COS date (12 weeks) or about my trip home (it was awesome), but to ask a favor.
I'm planning a girl's summer camp with two other PCVs - Danielle and Lara - as well as our host organization RIDEV and an elementary school that D and I work at. This will be its third year in existence, and the last two have been great successes. During the camp, we train 20 to 25 high school girls in sexual reproductive health, general health, and life skills (decision making, goal setting, communication, etc.) and in how to be peer educators. The goal is for them to take what they learn and teach it to their high school and neighborhood friends, helping reduce HIV and STI transmission as well as the early pregnancy rate - which is way too high.
The problem is that this year, we were told that PEPFAR would no longer fund the camp, as it was not intended to be an annual funding source. So we're still struggling to put together the money to make this camp happen.
If you want to read more about last year's camp, check out this blog post that I wrote last July. It was a fantastic experience, definitely my favorite project that I have done in country. Not because its a big undertaking and thus was so satisfying, but because the participants loved it and thought they learned so much from it. Maybe all teachers will identify with this, but I live for the moment a class-clown student tells me that I have totally changed her outlook on learning and her ability to communicate with others. #girlsempowerment #whoruntheworld? #girls
If you've got more than you know what to do with or just more than you need and would like to make a Cameroonian girl's day, we would love it if you helped us out by donating. The camp costs about $1500.00 and every bit helps! If you want to know more about the camp or where the money goes, feel free to leave a comment here to email me. And if, miracle of miracles, we raise more than we need, it will go into RIDEV's account for next year's event. To donate, you can scroll to the bottom of this blog post, where there is a widget into which you can input your information and donate directly from there. Thank you in advance :)
I'm planning a girl's summer camp with two other PCVs - Danielle and Lara - as well as our host organization RIDEV and an elementary school that D and I work at. This will be its third year in existence, and the last two have been great successes. During the camp, we train 20 to 25 high school girls in sexual reproductive health, general health, and life skills (decision making, goal setting, communication, etc.) and in how to be peer educators. The goal is for them to take what they learn and teach it to their high school and neighborhood friends, helping reduce HIV and STI transmission as well as the early pregnancy rate - which is way too high.
The problem is that this year, we were told that PEPFAR would no longer fund the camp, as it was not intended to be an annual funding source. So we're still struggling to put together the money to make this camp happen.
If you want to read more about last year's camp, check out this blog post that I wrote last July. It was a fantastic experience, definitely my favorite project that I have done in country. Not because its a big undertaking and thus was so satisfying, but because the participants loved it and thought they learned so much from it. Maybe all teachers will identify with this, but I live for the moment a class-clown student tells me that I have totally changed her outlook on learning and her ability to communicate with others. #girlsempowerment #whoruntheworld? #girls
If you've got more than you know what to do with or just more than you need and would like to make a Cameroonian girl's day, we would love it if you helped us out by donating. The camp costs about $1500.00 and every bit helps! If you want to know more about the camp or where the money goes, feel free to leave a comment here to email me. And if, miracle of miracles, we raise more than we need, it will go into RIDEV's account for next year's event. To donate, you can scroll to the bottom of this blog post, where there is a widget into which you can input your information and donate directly from there. Thank you in advance :)
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