Project Encouraging Words
Project Encouraging Words
Background:
The cultural climate in Zambia and most of Sub-Saharan Africa generally does not value nor place a priority on the importance of education for girls and young women. Studies show that not only the men in their lives, but also the women- primarily their mothers- discourage their continued education. Yet studies also show that education of women leads to a significant decrease in gender disparity.
Objective:
To find a group of educated women to pair with girls in Zambia as pen-pals in order to encourage them to stay in school and to provide infinitely more opportunities for themselves. My goal with this project is for each girl to have at least one female voice in their life encouraging them to get an education equal to that of a man’s.
Requests of the women’s organization:
- Identify 25 women to be mentors through a pen-pal relationship to the girls of Global Samaritans Children’s Home
- Each woman would be asked to write one letter per month to her specific pen-pal
- Letters will focus on encouraging the girls to stay in school
- Positive outcomes from the mentor’s education
- I will provide a therapist for an initial informational session with the mentors about the situation of the girls and the parameters for the letters. They will then be available to answer questions for the first year of Project Encouraging Words.
- Letters will be sent individually by each mentor to the Children’s Home via the U.S. Postal Service
- Please enclose and extra piece of paper and envelope for the girl’s reply (as supplies are so difficult to get there)
- Letters to Zambia will require 3 forever stamps each
- If a mentor is no longer able to continue the pen-pal relationship, I ask that she simply find another woman within the chapter to continue the mentorship for the child.
- Letters are to be written in English
- This is the official language of Zambia and will actually help the girls in their education as they practice their English through the pen-pal relationship.
Request of Global Samaritans Children’s Home:
- To help the girls write reply letters to their mentors and provide return postage
- To provide retention rates for the girls in school for the two years prior to the start of Project Encouraging Words and retention rates each year thereafter as a means of tracking the success of the program.
Background of Global Samaritans Children’s Home and Girls in the Program:
“Since its founding, Global Samaritans has focused primarily on their children’s home in Livingstone, Zambia. Our first children arrived in April of 2002 and there are currently 56 children residing at Global Samaritans Children's Home. The children are either double or single orphaned due to the AIDS epidemic which has devastated sub-Saharan Africa…Global Samaritans Children’s Home provides food, clothes, a home with stability, medical care, education, [and] family…Global Samaritans has been able to establish an impeccable and firm presence in Zambia. We have a wonderful relationship with the government officials and business leaders in Livingstone. Global Samaritans is often regarded as one of the best orphanages in southern Zambia.”
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