Heidi in the Hut: G.L.O.W. Girls

A couple weeks ago I attended my first G.L.O.W. Camp. Its an event that's put on by Peace Corps every years for girls 13 to 18 to teach them women's empowerment. Each volunteer brings two girls and a teacher from their respective villages. Then everyone spends one week at the camp while the volunteers talk about HIV awareness, family planning, sugar daddies, boyfriends, and planning for the future. Its only a start to what these girls need to learn, but in just one week you could see these things making a difference in the girl's lives and attitudes at camp. It wasn't all just sitting there learning. We also played sports and games, did arts and crafts, and danced. I helped another volunteer do her health talks. We made a great team I would say. Since we are both health volunteers we did health talks on: puberty, the male and female anatomy, family planning, and quickly discussed pregnancy. This next term we are supposed to go back and create a G.L.O.W. Club in our schools. A lot of these tend to fail, but I have high hopes for my school. The teacher I brought was the most active in the sessions and I could tell that these topics were also very important to her. The girl I brought, Matilda, doesn't speak much English and I think that was part of the reason why she was so shy in the beginning. But it was great to see her come out of her shell and start interacting with the other girls. She came alive when it was time to play sports. It was really a fantastic thing to watch.