Eager Readers at Girls LitClub in Manila

This past Sunday was my first reunion of the year with the Girls LitClubs at our partner organization, Real Life Foundation. It was so much fun to see the girls again, their shy smiles brightening wider and wider as the LitClubs session unfolded through the day.

We read a Tagalog/English book about fathers, and the girls were so eager to get a chance to read- they eagerly volunteered each time we turned the page, and it was encouraging to witness their thirst for their voice to be heard. We talked about the book, shared our favorite childhood memories, sang together, praised one another, and reminded each other of the seven strengths. We had a great afternoon spending time together!

 

Submitted by our LitCorps Ambassador in the Philippines, Ruby

Girls in Accra, Ghana, Recognize that Kindness Creates Change.

We are thrilled to receive photos and updates from Emefa, our LitClubs Facilitator in Accra, Ghana. Read on below to learn about the recent experiences of the young women in Accra:

It was much joy meeting again as readers, writers and friends after a break that ushered us into a new year and a new school term. It was with much excitement that we said hello to each other as we welcomed one another to our day 7 meeting.

Kindness was the strength around which our story for the day was shared. We shared a story by a local author entitled “Ama’s Concern” by Akua Tanefa. The story is about the love and concern of a little girl for trees in her community. She had learned in school that trees are life. Trees provide shelter, protect the environment, serve as wind breaks, and facilitates rainfall for the benefit of crops and plants. Ama began to complain to her parents and people around her about cutting trees for firewood and timber. She became sad anytime she saw trees being cut. Even though Ama’s concern has still not received attention in her community she continues to move the crusade against cutting trees and she hopes that one that one day the call will be responded to.


The story was connected to Kindness as one of the Litworld Girl’s club strengths. The girls were led to acknowledge Ama’s tenderness towards trees in her community and her positive attitude of responding to an environmental cause.

For our writing activity, images representing global issues were shared and discussed among girls. Girls were asked to choose one issue most important to them write down why the issue is important to them and how they can change the world to make it better.

Very interesting write ups were shared by girls. All responses were recorded on a chart paper and the list titled “What we care about”. Girls were then asked to write letters to the world, the president, the first lady, or anyone they would like, telling that person or global community what they feel is an important cause, what needs to be changed and how they think the change could be accomplished.

Girls who have volunteered to have their letters share with the group have also volunteered to share their letters with the Girls Club Community.

The meeting was wrapped up with a review of the day’s activities. I emphasized the need for the girls to continue to think about the world outside their neighborhood. The need for them to effect positive change, both in their communities and in the world was stressed.

As we held hands and sang our farewell song together, I reminded girls of how we are all connected and a special community of women and girls.

Thank you for instilling lessons in kindness and changemaking in these young women, Emefa. We love hearing and sharing your stories!

LitWorld Friends Visit Girls LitClubs in Kenya!

Recently, our LitWorld friend Bradley visited our LitWorld program sites in Kenya. She spent time with the young women there, witnessing and feeling the impact of our Girls LitClubs. Here is a short excerpt of her experience, and a few photos from her trip!

 

We really loved working with the kids in the lower school, but both Amelia and I thought that meeting with your girls' club girls and spending time with them over the week was a real highlight.  They are so impressive, and they really highlighted the need for continued focus on girls of that age group.  We had a lot of fun with them. 

Thank you for visiting our Girls LitClubs, Bradley!

Meet the Jerusalem Girls LitClub!

Our dear friend Leah moved to Jerusalem not too long ago, and set up our first Girls LitClub in Jerusalem. It is our pleasure to introduce these young women to the rest of our Girls LitClubs across the world!

The girls of LitWorld’s first Israeli Girls Club want to introduce themselves, Jerusalem, and the special school they attend. Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel is a network of integrated, bilingual schools whose goal is to increase peace, coexistence and equality between the Jews and Arabs of Israel. The club is made up of thirteen 15-year-old Arab girls, who are passionate young women, eager to share their stories and make a difference in their world.

Today we wrote about and discussed what it means to be different, our feelings about living in Jerusalem, and the things we want to change in our world. Together we wrote this letter to introduce our club.

*******

Dear LitWorld Girls Clubs,

 We live in Jerusalem, a city that is deeply conflicted. There is not only conflict between Jews and Arabs (that’s the conflict everyone knows about), there is also conflict between Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs, Religious/Conservative Arabs and Secular/Progressive Arabs, Religious Jews and Secular Jews, Men and Women, etc. Of course the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs is the biggest but there are many more problems that people don’t know about. Being a teenage Arab girl in Jerusalem is more difficult than being thirsty in the desert. School is the only place we can express ourselves safely. There are three religions here and we all believe in the same God. We want the world to be more open-minded. Racism hurts and we are surrounded by it every day. We must get rid of our society’s narrow-minded mentality, we must stop the objectification of women, and we must stand up for co-existence.

 We are different than the society we live in. We attend a co-existence school, we believe in peace. We are different. Sometimes it feels special to be different and sometimes it’s hard. But we believe that being open-minded is important. We can see things differently and bring a new perspective. We need change. We can be the change.

Being a part of something special makes you special. So being a part of this makes us special.

Love,

The Girls of Israel’s First Girls Club

Girls LitClub in Kibera Are Back & Ready for 2012!

This entry was submmited by Girls LitClub facilitator Prisca:

WELCOME BACK GIRLS!

The Lit girls are back! The long December holidays are over. Anxious to begin the New Year, they were overjoyed to see their friends. We had a small party to welcome them where they had all their favorite snacks and spent the better part sharing what they were up to over the December holidays. All their adventures were fascinating and watching them trilled to be back filled me with such warmth and happiness. We also got the opportunity to introduce our new members to the LitWorld girls club and they look forward to attending our meetings in future. All the girls filled in questionnaires to better guide me on their expectations for the year and I am anxious to get started. We now have our first candidates waiting to sit for their exams by the end of the year. These are all the girls that were in class 7 and are now in class 8. We are all very proud and support them as they prepare for their examinations. It is indeed going to be an interesting year
ahead!

The Girls LitClub in Kibera also got some special visitors from the U.S.! Here they are meeting and getting to know each other for the first time:

What a great start for the girls in Kibera for 2012!

Mums Light Up in Bungoma, Kenya!

This entry was submitted by Rose, our Girls LitClub facilitator in Bungoma, Kenya:


Here are photos of a few happy LitClub mums after receiving solar lamps for their girls. Indeed Christmas came early for these mums! They were all smiles as they each received a solar lantern with her litclub daughter!
 

Light finally came at the end of the turnel! The girls expressed their joy through song and dance. The smoky kerosene lamps that made them suffer are going to end up in dustbins. The lamps that were donated by Litworld came in handy as some of the girls were preparing for exams and one of them studied hard to emerge top at the school after scoring 350 marks out of 500!
To them, these lamps are magical, a savior, a precious jewel!
Thank you Litworld.
Thank YOU, Rose!!

Celebrating the End of the Year with Girls LitClub In Baltimore!


For our final gathering, we invited families to join us to hear about and celebrate the wonderful work the girls have been doing for the last 12 weeks. They described books and poems we shared, and the girls read some of their own work in addition to some of their favorite authors. It was great to hear them excited to share and discuss their thoughts with everyone. The moms who were able to attend were delighted to see their daughters so engaged and enthusiastic about reading and writing and thinking. We enjoyed snacks, and I sent the girls off with mini-notebooks and pencils so they can write their observations and ideas wherever they go!

Submitted by Girls LitClub Facilitator Virginia Crawford

Knights Kenya Girls LitClub Celebrate Womanhood!

On 2nd December 2011, The KNIGHTS Kenya organized an end year conference for the Girls Club with the theme “Enhancing Self Esteem through Self Identity”. Self Esteem is one of the Seven Strengths learned in the Litworld Curriculum. As a Facilitator, we realized that many girls have low self-esteem, and we thought that it would be wise to organize an activity that would help them work on enhancing their self esteem.

We invited amazing women of the community as our special guests. For a special activity, the girls modeled both their Casual and Traditional Costumes.  This session was in line with the theme of the conference “Enhancing Self Esteem through Self Identity.” The girls encouraged the others by show-casing their self confidence during their modeling.

Then, the Girls Club presented a poem entitled “Mon Ma Kawuono” , translated as “Women of Today”. This poem encourages oung girls to get their priorities right as they grow up and perform their daily chores. It advises the girls not to fall prey to the needs of the worldly items, but instead, concentrate on being productive and successful in all that they do.

We also had some amazing motivational speakers to inspire the girls. It is our wish to organize this activity yearly, which would help the girls realize and develop their talents. We also wish to thank everybody who attended and contributed towards the success of this event, which made the girls very happy and positive as they went on break for the December Christmas holidays.

This entry was submitted by our partner organization, Knights Kenya.

VIDEO: IT ONLY TAKES A GIRL

Here at LitWorld, we are still glowing from the news that The Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly agreed to designate October 11 as the International Day of the Girl! International Day of the Girl will be observed every year beginning in 2012, and we are so thrilled that the world will now officially stand up for girls on the 11th of every October.

In light of this news, we are thrilled to have discovered this incredible video called "It Only Takes A Girl", which highlights the urgency of girls education and the power of a girl to change the world.

Watch the video below, and visit the creator on her website at: http://itonlytakesagirl.org/movie.html

You can also follow her on Twitter at: @ONLYTAKESAGIRL


Girls LitClubs Baltimore: Hope is Me & You.

*This entry was submitted by our Girls LitClub Facilitator in Baltimore, Virginia


This week's Girls LitClub topic was Hope. We read a poem by Sri Chinmoy, and the girls understood that we are all the same, that all people are connected, and that by acting from that place of understanding, we can overcome any obstacle.

Then we read and listened to several pieces from Hip Hop Speaks to Children (my goodness how much that book is loved!), and the girls wrote their own ideas about hope. Several knew a dance to one of the hip-hop pieces and performed that for us, another wrote and sang an original song for us!

If their creativity is anything to go by, yes, Hope is alive and well! As we near the end of this first part of our club, my hope is that the girls remember the connectedness we have discovered and always act from that place of understanding.


Girls LitClubs in Virginia Beach: A Close Knit Group

 

In our Girls Club, we began by learning a chant that was written by one of the girls.  Then we referred back to the seven strengths and discussed how this club would really empower each one of them. 
I then had them fill out the questionnaire to find out more about each one of them. I allowed them to each find a spot in the room so that they could really focus on personal responses. It was amazing to me how quiet and thoughtful they were.  It took almost a half hour for them to finish, but I thought it was best to let them take as much time as they needed since they seemed to be very interested in getting to share more about themselves through writing.   

 When they finished, we began browsing magazines to begin creating a poster about the seven strengths.   One of the girls thought it would be really neat to trace their hands on construction paper and cut them out, and then write a strength in each hand.  Another girl thought we should find pictures from magazines that represented the strengths, and create a large collage around the hand cutouts.  

On our next meeting, the girls continued to work on the poster, but still hadn’t found all the photos they wanted yet.  We decided that we would spend a small amount of time each week on the poster so that it would be a work in progress over several weeks time.  

We read “Chrysanthemum”, and it was amazing to me how much these girls related to the story. Each one of them had such unique discussions about how they sometimes felt pressured by what others thought of them. When we finished the stories, I had them brainstorm adjectives that describe themselves.  They each wrote 20+ adjectives on cards and the girls shared them with one another and put them on a poster board. They created lines connecting similarities and made a web. Each time we come together, the girls bond and truly open up to one another in this close knit group.  

Submitted by Molly, Girls LitClub Facilitator in Virginia Beach

Girls LitClubs in Accra, Ghana Learn Business and Trade Through Women in the Market

For our special activity, we decided to connect with the community market women. The girls’ decision to visit market women in our local community stems from the fact that the Ghanaian indigenous culture reserves the market place for women to engage in business or trade. The market is basically characterized with buying and selling.


On the other hand, modernity, girl child empowerment, and the fight against child labor, are gradually widening the gap between girls and the market setting. The girls club in Madina, however, believe there is still something to be learned and explored in the market.

The visit was therefore to:
*Connect with the women who are also their mothers and sisters
*To gain firsthand experience of the activities that exist in the market
*To talk to the women and to understand their operations
*To find out what challenges they face as women
*To find out what challenges individual women in the market face in trading their specific foodstuff or products.

The two hour visit was an interactive one. The women, who were so pleased to have the girls connect with them this way, willingly shared their experiences at the market with the girls. The women took time to explain how they go about their specific trade in the market.  Litworld girls positively and inquisitively asked the women very interesting questions that got the women explaining issues such as:

*Source of one’s foodstuff of product
*The types of breed of a particular foodstuff
*Gestation periods
*Transportation costs
*Preservative measures
*Profit margins
*Security for goods

The girls were very happy to for such an opportunity to learn about the operations of the community market from the women. They promised to visit the market again!

Submitted by Emefa, Girls LitClub Facilitator in Madina-Accra, Ghana

Girls LitClub in Bungoma, Kenya Begin Their Entrepreneurship Enterprise!

Our Girls LitClub in Bungoma, Kenya, have started their own entrepreneurship enterprise:chickens! Through the help of LitWorld, the Bungoma LitClub has been able to build chicken homes so that they can have their own business. This venture will help them exercise financial literacy skills, and give them a sustainable way to develop income.

Rose, our Bungoma LitClub Facilitator, said that the women sung songs of praise while cementing mud on the walls of their new chicken homes. We are so thrilled for their uplifting new venture, and we are so honored to be a part of this. 

You can view their photos below. Thank you to Bungoma Girls LitClub Facilitator Rose for submitting these photos!

Girls LitClub in Baltimore Enjoy an Author Visit!

 

This week we were lucky enough to have Monalisa DeGross visit our club! She has published three books and is writing her fourth. She also works in a library, so she knows quite a lot about reading and writing. The girls were very excited to ask her about her books as many had already read at least one of them. Monalisa! 

Ms. DeGross described each of her books and gave some excellent advice for anyone who might want to write books: Read! Observe! and Write! She pointed out that we all "tell stories" even if we're just describing the trip to or from school and that each of our voices is valuable.

 She even brought us gifts! Each girl received a copy of The Three Questions (adapted from Leo Tolstoy), Donavan's Word Jar by Monalisa herself, and a note pad and pencil all tied together with bright shoe laces. It was a lively and delightful afternoon! Thank you, Monalisa!

Submitted by Girls Club Facilitator Virginia

Eager Readers at Boys LitClub in Pasig City, Philippines

*Our Boys LitClub in Pasig City, Philippines is done in partnership with the Real Life Foundation.

The boys at the Boys LitClub were a bundle of energy and excitement as they met for the second time. When I brought out our read aloud book, they gathered around wanting for the opportunity to read a paragraph out to the rest of the group. Luckily, there were enough pages in the book for everyone to have a turn!

I brought special gifts from LitWorld to this session, our globe balls, which everyone loved. Using the globe balls, I had the boys answer our question of the day: "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

The boys shouted out cities and countries from different continents, expressing their dreams to see the world.

A boys litclub participant (pictured above) took our read aloud book from the session and sat with it on his own, eagerly reading the text on his own. It was inspiring to see him want to read so much- he even wanted to stay longer just to read!

 

Special thanks to volunteer Michelle for helping me facilitate this week's Boys LitClub!

- written by LitCorps Ambassador Ruby Veridiano

Giving Thanks with Girls LitClub in Baltimore

This week my club discussed things we love and feel thankful for. We read Eloise Greenfield's poem, Honey, I Love and discussed what she loved: her mom, her cousin, her friend and playing dolls. Then we considered what we love, and being the day before Thanksgiving, what we feel thankful for. One of the girls mentioned how she enjoyed making turkeys by tracing the outline of her hand on paper.

We did that and then wrote one of our items in each of the turkey's "feathers." At least one girl was so appreciative she filled the entire shape! We made a collective list and found that we are thankful for many of the same things: our families, friends, homes, school and even our club! Here's hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that we all remember to be appreciative every day.

--Virginia

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