By Tessa Davis | Program Director
Just Like My Child Foundation (JLMC) recently held its second annual Camp Girl Power in rural Uganda!! The camp is an unparalleled opportunity for adolescent girls and boys who have excelled in the first two phases of The Girl Power Project ® to come together with their peers.
We are proud to announce that Camp Girl Power 2013 was successfully facilitated by the project’s superstar 2012 graduates! Just two years ago these girls could not look our team in the eyes or shake our hands because of an ingrained culture of submissiveness, which puts girls in this context at great risk for sexual violence. We are thrilled to report that we witnessed these same young ladies, now Girl Power peer mentors, stand up boldly with microphones in hand leading Camp Girl Power for over 100 of their peers with confidence and determination!! It was an incredible success and we applaud their courageousness and leadership!
The two-day roll up your sleeves camp provided a space for Girl Power participants to celebrate their social survival skills and demonstrate what they’ve learned. It brought together over 160 adolescents who made the most of their time together by carrying out dramatizations, debates, small group discussions and presentations. In the evening they all settled in around the campfire to give personal testimony to the positive impact The Girl Power Project has had on their lives and the lives of those around them.
The participants graduated as Girl Power Peer Mentors on the second day of the camp and got the special treat of receiving their credentials directly from Vivian Glyck, Founder and Executive Director of JLMC! Girl Power Project Participants who shined extra bright amongst the group of superstars received backpacks filled with learning materials for the upcoming school term. St. Joseph Magogo, one of JLMC’s schools, was honored with a gift of a goat for being an exemplary supporter and model of Girl Power.
The camp concluded with a phenomenal dance performance and ballad from St. Joseph Magogo featuring 15-year-old Timyra Joi, an extremely talented young American singer, who bravely traveled with JLMC to Uganda to see The Girl Power Project in action first hand! You may recognize Timyra from NBC’s The Voice.
We want to acknowledge our amazing team of Ugandan colleagues for pulling off an astonishing Camp Girl Power, which required impeccable orchestration, and the fulfillment of hundreds of details to make sure the program was effective, fun, and most importantly, that the kids were safe, cared for, and had a life-changing experience.
Special thanks to Timyra Joi for braving the unknown at such a young age and to CNN ireporter, Chris Morrow for trekking across the world with us to capture this important event! Team JLMC is so grateful and proud to have hosted both of them and we hope the memories last them a lifetime!
We especially want to thank all of those who have dug into their pocket books to make this camp possible!! We hope you will continue to follow our exciting progress and be a critical part of JLMC’s Girl Power Project movement!! We encourage you to click on all of the links we have provided and share our story and videos with others who may wish to get involved!
We extend our continuing gratitude to our partners, The Collective Heart and Feminine Power whose commitment; love and support have helped to make this project possible. Together, we are doing amazing and essential work!
Links:
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