Support Set Her Free: Empower Ugandan Women

This Summer, three other interns and I had the privilege of interning at the amazing nonprofit, Set Her Free, in Kampala, Uganda, serving as representatives of GW’s GlobeMed. In merely five weeks, we gained a deeper understanding for the challenges and barriers that many people in Uganda face. Choice, we have learned, is a privilege for many Ugandan women and girls. Through our interactions with the staff, women, and girls of Set Her Free, and even our short conversations with passer-byers and Uber drivers, our cultural competency has drastically increased. 

During our time in Kampala, we accomplished many tasks and created useful content for Set Her Free. In the office, we designed the Annual Report and Strategic Plan, compiled data and organized it into easy-to-understand charts, created personalized certificates for Set Her Free’s graduation, and conducted interviews with the 2019 graduating class. We also filmed and edited a short video that will be used for future Set Her Free events and promotional opportunities. While we did accomplish many tasks, we feel that we got so much more out of this experience than we could ever give—Through our various projects, we got the chance to listen deeply to the voices of the young women of Set Her Free, becoming more aware of their realities and becoming more empathetic listeners. Their stories have inspired us beyond words and have given us perspective that is too often lost. We have each been equipped with new, tangible skills that we will be able to take with us into our future careers. Most importantly, during our time at Set Her Free, we have created life long friendships and memories. Words cannot describe how grateful each of us feel for being able to meet such incredible, resilient, empowered women. This experience has forever shaped our futures and has inspired us to continue to advocate and advance issues that we are passionate about on a global stage.

The school year has unfortunately wrapped up and we had our last chapter meeting on April 28^th. Some of our semester highlights include: our most successful conference yet, and our first annual GlobalGiving day where we were able to raise a ton of money with the help from all of our donors. We are so thankful for everyone’s support! With everyone’s help we were able to shatter our goal of raising $10,000 for SHF this year! We are so beyond proud of our chapter. As the year ended, we elected new presidents and a new executive board. We are so proud to call Elizabeth Campbell and Janani Krishnan our new co-presidents. We also want to take the time to thank Ellie Smith and Adam Ricker, our co-presidents for the 2018-2019 school year. They were amazing leaders and helped make it the most successful year of GlobeMed yet! As we transition into summer, we are looking forward to sending a new set of GROW interns to Set Her Free. They will be learning from Robinah and all the staff at SHF, a truly incredible and informative experience. We are so excited for them to strengthen our partnership and bring back lots of stories for our chapter. A few updates concerning Set Her Free include: the continuation of the Angel House project, construction plans for the buildings of the Angel House, the creation of a chicken farm, and all girls in formal education have been sent to boarding schools (which is the norm in Uganda). SHF has partnered with some architects from the US who are generously helping plan the blueprints for this amazing project. This past semester, the US-based architects had the chance to go to Uganda to meet with the local architects and builders to help solidify the plans. The chicken farm will help with sustainability efforts as it provides a means for food and alternative income. Formerly, some of the younger girls had been staying at the house and receiving their education at a local day school, but due to the strengthening of government regulations, that was no longer allowed. Although the SHF staff are sad that they are no longer as close by, they are happy that these girls are still given the opportunity to further their education. Finally, we just want to take the time to say thanks to generous donors like you, who help GlobeMed make its partnership with SHF so successful. Without people like you, we would not be able to reach our fundraising goals! We will be passing along updates from our new GROW team throughout the summer and we cannot wait until we are back in DC in August to start another year of GlobeMed!