Educate 10 girls in rural Rwanda

Hello Friends!

It has been a wonderful summer for The Komera Project! We have been working hard building our programs and providing the best possible support for the Komera Scholars. They are heading into their final term of the school year as their year starts in January and ends in November. 

We were able to gather together in August for three amazing days for our Girls Academy for Social Change. The scholars always begin the academy with Body, Breath and Mind work. This is an opportunity for them to learn how to calm their bodies and minds and learn how manage stress in their daily lives. There's a lot of giggling but in the end it's always their favourite thing to do! 

They also talked about their non-profit projects that they launched at the beginning of the year. They were able to review finances and talk about providing updates to their donors. They were also able to sit down and discuss issues that they were facing and problem solve together. On the final day they came together to recieve some health education and discuss issues that they were facing in their daily lives. They continue to request coaching on how to deal with difficult relationship and also sexual reproductive health. 

We are looking forward to this December when everyone will be together for a week to celebrate the year. I am particularly excited as I will be there with the scholars during the camp! 

Thank you so much for your continued support of our work. We work incredibly hard at supporting our scholars and ensuring that they receive the support that they so desperately need - we could not do this without you.

Warm regards,

Margaret 

Hello to friends and supporters!

We are thrilled to update you on our progress thus far. Thanks to your donations we can provide two new girls with Komera scholarships for three years, guaranteeing that they will be able to complete their secondary education. This is a huge accomplishment, as giving a girl a chance to finish secondary school means that she will marry approximately four years later and have 2.2 fewer children at a point in her life when she has the desire and is prepared to be a mother. She will have healthier, better-nourished kids, and will receive a 15%-25% boost in earnings, which she will most likely invest in her family and her children’s educations. So, as you can see, your investment in a girl’s education is not simply a contribution to her future, but rather an investment in her community and country as well.  

However, your support goes to more than classes. Education is vital, but we cannot expect a girl to pull herself, family, and community out of poverty by simply sending her away to school and crossing our fingers. Therefore, your donation also supports our Social Entrepreneurship and School Mentorship Programs. We listen to the requests and needs of our scholars, so when they asked to be taught business skills, we responded with the Social Entrepreneurship Academy. This program meets during November/December, April, and August, the three Rwandan school breaks throughout the year. The program launched last November with the seventy-five scholars being given seed grants to start their own non-profits, through which they will learn business skills like budgeting, planning, and execution of strategy. 

Our School Mentorship Program works with girls while they attend school. Each mentor is trained by Komera’s social workers to teach her students about sexual and reproductive health, financial responsibility, and goal setting, among others. The scholars and the mentor meet once a week during the school year to discuss these areas, in addition to any problems the young women might be having in and out of school.

One girl who has recently had the opportunity to become a Komera scholar and access these special programs is Valentine, an eighteen year old in the Rwandan equivalent of eleventh grade. She is returning to high school with Komera’s help and loves business. Thanks to donations just like yours, this young woman will be able to achieve her dream of running a bank one day. 

Currently, we are working on developing a global network of young leaders. Our ideas in this area include summits with varying ratios of American, Rwandan, and East African girls. We’re also thinking about an online forum to connect girls united by Komera to support each other in the various projects they are pursuing. Have you had any experience with global networks, or any ideas about how to connect young leaders all over the world? In addition, our Global Run is coming up on June 19^th! We have a main run in Rwanda, but this year we have satellite runs all over the world. Would you like to join a team and run in solidarity with the Komera scholars? Check out our webpage where you can sign up or join a run! 

As you can see we have a lot going on now and a lot planned for the future! You are an integral part of that. Thanks to you all of Komera’s current and future programs can run smoothly and well. We still want to raise enough to send 10 girls to school and reach our $15,000 goal – we are heading in that direction and are grateful for you help in sharing our work! We are thrilled to have you on our team, thank you for all you have done for our scholars. Komera!

Links:

• The Komera Global Run 2013
• Komera Global Run!