From Sexually Exploited to Confident Young Women

With the help of awesome donors like you, we are expanding rapidly and will be opening our very own all-girls academy in 2013! The More Than Me Academy will enable us to increase our impact by affecting over 500 girls and indirectly thousands more. With its focus on teaching entrepreneurship, the school will empower these girls to be able to provide for themselves by becoming active participants in their local economy.

Each girl will be given uniforms, books, health-care, nutritious lunches, mentors, and a safe environment to reach her potential. Following the traditional school day, the girls will work with social workers and tutors, as well as attend vocational training workshops in activities such as, sewing, baking, and jewelry-making. We are also so excited to be able to provide dance and photography for our students, which have never been introduced to the Liberian school system. All of this would not be possible without you!

This December, we had an amazing month - some of the girls in Liberia learned how to use a laptop for the first time ever! More Than Me volunteer, Emma Reynolds, started computer lessons with a class of 10 girls, teaching them how to type, save documents and use a mouse pad. They even had typing competitions in which the teachers were quite strict on making sure the girls used their two hands and learned to touch-type from the start. Hawa, who is 12 years old, won the typing competitions every time with a speedy style of touch-typing. The girls were so eager to learn and absolutely loved working with the computer; every time they pressed the 'on' button and the laptop turned on, their eyes lit up with excitement. What's next? Maybe learning how to use the Internet! We can’t wait to see and experience huge growth in our students and organization over the upcoming year. We want to thank you for all of your support and generosity, we would never be able to reach as many girls without you!