By Marvinetta M Woodley-Penn | Executive Director
Our bodies might be confined to home, local and country borders, but are minds and souls are free to wander. And so, we dream, we plan and we create fundraisers to support our next international arts exchange endeavor. Next stop, Djibouti,in east Africa. A family friend and former middle school principal now lives there, works in a school and has inviated Global Girls to come and engage her female students in creating their own show about their girl-focused issues. YES! A team of 12 girls ages 14 to 22 are learning about the country, learning the "Stories on Stage" curriculum and practicing their peer facilitation/mentoring skills.
15 year old Mariama has been homeschooled most of her life and only attended public school for one semester. Her only social outlet is Global Girls' afterschool program. When we told her she would be taking the trip with us, she jumped from her seat and danced around the entire studio. "Oh my!! I can't believe this is happening to me. I heard to the stories from older girls who travelled to India or Ghana, Grenada and Kenya and prayed that one day I too would get my passport and board a plane for the first time. Now, I feel like crying cause it's actually gonna happen! Thank you, Global Girls, thank you so, so, so, so very much!"
The other 11 girls were just as excited and wrote as passionately. Their stories will appear in our January newsletter.
In the meantime, our work continues in Chicago with a daytime school at our location for parents who work and can't leave their children home alone, online. The afterschool program, maksed and socially-distanced roles on. Our new media room will soon be up and running where we weill produce a bi-weekly TV show for girls by girls and our teen podcast will debut the first week in November.
Yep, COVID and all, here at Global Girls, we find ways of carrying on the work by "keeping the main thing, the main thing."
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