Girls Leadership Institutes keep Mayan teens in school. Workshops and village Girls Clubs promote the girls' commitment to their education, bolstering goal setting, community engagement, self-esteem, and gender awareness.
In San Pedro Sacatepequez, San Marcos, boys outnumber girls in school 3 to 1 and the majority of the town's women have only completed 3rd grade. Girls and parents don't see a future where girls would need education and indigenous girls in their teens often get pregnant, marry, and drop out of school. Women Work Together empowers girls to direct their own futures, challenging them to recognize their leadership capabilities, develop personal goals, and think big about what they are capable of.
Our Girls Leadership Institute provides a supportive learning environment of participatory workshops that equip young teens to direct their own lives and futures by staying in school. Interactive programs incorporate mutual support groups that reinforce the importance of setting and achieving personal goals. The Girls Club peer groups raise the visibility of educated girls while channeling the girls' ideas and energy into local community and school service projects.
Women Work Together has unlocked the potential of hundreds of Mayan girls to stay in school, enabling them to earn more, have smaller and healthier families and better gender relations. Not only is a girl who stays in school bucking the trend of female illiteracy, but she serves as an active and visible model for other girls as well. And, educated women send their daughters, indeed all of their children, to school.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
