Help Global Sorority to Expand our Reach

Staying in touch is harder to do than I ever imagined it would be.

Writing to you and keeping you in the loop is easy. It’s the young women in the communities we serve that are harder to keep up with.

We work with girls around the globe in remote places, where they deal with limited resources and access to things that we take for granted. Such as electricity, internet, safe spaces to gather, and consistency of local organizational support .

We’ve done a very good job at partnering with organizations in the communities we work in. Through them we have a life-line to the young women who’ve taken our programs, so we can check in with them and see what the girls need and how they are meeting their goals and expanding their lives.

People ask "do you keep in touch with all the girls that you deliver leadership courses to?" And my answer is we try our very best and sometimes we lose track of a young women along the way. It’s hard for me because I remember each one of them, their story, their struggles and their dreams.  I often lay awake at night wondering where they are and what they are doing.  And I’m comforted knowing that no matter what, they are in a better place from experiencing being a part of our community, for learning about themselves, how to communicate, shifting their internal dialog and self perceived value.

So in this newsletter I’m going to share with you one special young woman who has done an amazing job of keeping us in her life.

Her name is Thuli, she’s from South Africa and we met her when we went there to work with survivors of sexual violence in 2014

Since then there have been some amazing ups and some devastating downs, but her spirit is so resilient and her will to overcome despite everything stacked against her gives me hope, that no matter what a young woman may face, if she has the internal tools to meet challenges, think critically  and trust in her abilities  to lead her own life, then she can change the world and it starts with one girl at a time.

Thuli  stood out in our group as a natural leader,  She showed up every day on time and was willing to do the hard internal work, She told her story for our documentary project, and she also took what she learned from us and shared it with young girls in her community. She teaches dance to children at a community center, and she organizes camping trips for them and experiences that they would never get to have. She spends her own very limited money to make this happen. She records stories of women in her community, and because of Global Sorority and the EOS workshop she decided that she was worthy of going back to school.  She also took a small grant and turned it into a money making business venture printing garments.

This all sounds like it was rainbows and smooth sailing but what I didn’t mention was that Thuli lost her adoptive mother and mentor,  she had to temporarily drop out of school to help her blind brother who lost his sight from being beaten by a gang, And a world of other road blocks that I often wonder if I were her what I would ever do to keep going. And through it all, her proud moments and moments of deep shame, she writes and tells me how grateful she is that we came into her life and changed everything for the better.  And that was only possible because of you. 

Our big ask this year is to help us build our online platform so that we can more easily stay connected to the girls that we work with here in the US and all over the world and to continued to provide community, support, education  and  mentorship, even when we can't be there in person.  Please consider being a sponsor of this next big Global Sorority project so that the Thulis of the world don’t slip through the cracks.

Thank you!

A poem By Thuli

It takes those kinds of wounds to be that kind of a woman.

Those kinds of wounds making you feel like it’s the end of the world.

Those kinds of wounds that make you feel worthless, useless and human less.

Those kinds of wounds that take you to a world of loneliness, confusion and destruction.

Wounds that make you hate yourself so much that you don’t want to be a woman anymore.

It takes these kinds of wounds to be that kind of a women.

Wounds of a broken heart, abuse, violation, humiliation. Were everything that you once were. Is no more.

 These kinds of wounds to be this kind of a women.

A woman of courage

A woman of integrity

A woman of self love and respect

 The kind of a woman who doesn't take a yes for a no and a no for a yes

The kind of a woman who is not put down by negative talk

A women who has taken all her power to all those that have wronged her, by forgiving them, and letting go.

A woman who's confidence is heard in her speech, and felt by speaking all positive things to herself.

It takes those kind of wounds to be this kind of a women.