"GIRLS compete with one another, WOMEN empower each other"

Our involvement with the girl empowerment projects was one of the greatest draws for me when I was deciding which global health study program I wanted to do almost a year ago. I have always been passionate about women’s health issues and using gender empowerment to help close that gap.

At African Impact they have a project whose single aim is to empower girls and young women to take more control of their lives by educating them on issues relating to health, decision making, secondary education, career training, and teaching marketable skills. Because we were on their medical team, most of my involvement with the Girl Impact program was relating to health education.

One of the highlights has been being here for Zambia’s National Health Week. We were able to participate in a bike ride throughout Livingstone as well as give multiple menstruation seminars to the 5-12 graders. It was such a neat experience. We went to three different schools that week, two of them being for the seminars and one that was an assembly type event where the District Commissioner came to speak.

We used the Days for Girls education materials and had an hour where we taught, and they asked any questions they had…ANY haha. I was shocked at how much they knew already (especially the younger ones) as well as their attentiveness and desire to learn more. They asked such great questions, that became my favorite part of these talks. The most eye-opening thing was not just that they knew a lot, but that they HAD to know a lot because STIs/STDs are so pervasive in their world. It is something that they are always surrounded by. In Livingstone, 1 in 4 people are HIV+, so if they aren’t, then chances are one of their close friends or family members being positive is very high.

There are a lot of misconceptions that these young girls have been taught and correcting that information with the truth is empowering in itself. The girls were so sweet. By the end several stayed after to talk to us more, ask question, and find out what clubs or opportunities were available for them to join so they could keep learning more and make a difference. There are so many strong women here, but the rising generation is one that I think will really see the change of tide with women’s rights and opportunities here in Zambia. It’s so exciting to be a part of!!

Another resource that is available to the adult women rather than the youth here is focused on generating income for these young mothers or other women. They meet once a week to get materials for making bags, scrunchies, wallets, jewelry, and other products that they can then sell at a reasonable price. I was only able to attend one morning but it was incredible to see these women so excited about creating their own products and for them to feel like they were able to contribute more to their families what they were already doing. These women work SO hard. It is unbelievable how much they do everyday. They wake up early before the sun is up to feed animals if they have them, prepare breakfast, get the kids off to school if they go, wash the dishes, start on the washing, tidy their homes, and then start preparing the next meal unless they have a shop to keep up. Even the daily housekeeping tasks are so much more labor intensive than they are at home. It would make me so mad when we would walk through the villages, see all these women working and then pass the bar at 11am and see all these men drinking. But at the same time, I recognize that they have a lot of hard things in their lives, and when you are brought up seeing that as a way to deal with stress it’s all you know to do.