support girls empowerment in Benin!

Dear Friends and Family,
As I’m sure you’re all aware, I’ve been living in Benin for over ayear serving with the Peace Corps. This next year I will bevolunteering with a camp called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World).The camp started in Romania in the early 90’s and spread to Benin in2000. Since then, it’s been held every year in various parts of thecountry.To put it bluntly, Benin is a very male dominated society whereunfortunately, women are not granted many of the same opportunities.Antiquated cultural norms and traditional beliefs still permeate thecountry, especially in the remote villages where many volunteers work. Girls often quit school at a young age to help take care of theirmultiple younger siblings at home. Many of them become marketvendors, are forced into marriages, or even worse, become prostitutes. In extreme cases, those that do manage to stay in school but do nothave the proper marks can advance by sleeping with their professors.Polygamy, although outlawed in Benin, still occurs and the numerouswives, unfortunately, must tolerate their husband’s actions as theylack the power or the education to do anything about it. On thegrassroots level, many are still illiterate and do not even knowFrench, their national language.

In my own experiences, I have begun a girl's club at the middle/highschool in my village, discussing topics similar to what we cover atCamp GLOW. The males outnumber the females by about three to one, andas the levels progress, the disparity increases. When I selected agirl from this school last year the director told me he was in fullsupport of any seminars or support I had for his girls because out ofthe 200 girls who attend, 14 of them were carrying children and onlyfour of those pregnancies being with other students. After elementaryschool, in order to attend school, there is a fee that variesdepending on location and size. With multiple children in thefamily, it’s often only the boys that get to continue with theirstudies, leaving the girls behind with just the bare minimumeducation.

As you can see, there is a great need in this country to educate womenand young girls about the importance of staying in school. That’swhat Camp GLOW strives to do. It’s a week long girl's empowermentcamp where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary tobecome better students and more powerful leaders in their communities. Throughout the week, various topics are discussed including financialplanning, sexual health, computer and internet literacy, goal-setting,HIV/AIDS awareness, study and leaderships skills, and malariaprevention techniques. The girls also participate in arts and crafts,sports and games, and take excursions to national governmentinstitutions and museums. All sessions are held by respectedsuccessful Beninese women who serve as excellent role models for thegirls.

The budget for this year’s camp runs close to $6000, so I ask yoursupport in please providing as little or as much as you can. Even adollar in Benin will go a long way. The camp is not set to startuntil June, but the sooner we have the money, the quicker we can startplanning, organizing, and finalizing all the details.

Please consider donating here, you can utilize the link belowhttps://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.donatenowand search for projects in Benin. The grant was just recently sent toPeace Corps Headquarters in Washington D.C. for final approval, andshould be online within the next week or two. Please continue tocheck periodically if you do not see anything.

The project is calledCamp GLOW – Porto Novo. Also, if this is a motivator, as weapproach the end of the year the donation is tax deductable.Thank you for your continued support and warm wishes. I hope all iswell back home, and continue to check my web posts atwww.laura2benin.blogspot.com for updates.

A Little More Clarity

Last weekend was halloween, we had a party at one of the girl's house who lives in Cotonou. I dressed up as a gypsy and my friend Glenna was a marche mama. She carried a bucket of cookies around on her head an sold them and wore alot of different colored pagnes or fabrics. The next night I stayed around and we made really awesome chili. It was more veggies than other but it tasted amazing and I had a Jiffy cornbread mix so we had awesome cornbread.

This week the radio project got approved by my APCD and the director and they sent it to USAID for their approval. Because of the exchange rate the amount of money I am asking for is more. Please pray with me that it gets processed quickly because I need the money by thanksgiving. It is kind of crucial. This weekend we had a 3 meetings this weekend and we went to the opening of an american bar restaurant that had amazing fish and steak fillets. I am looking forward to going back and spending time with my beninese friends at post these last few weeks before my vacation.

I also had a visit from my APCD (who is the person I report to in peace corps). It was a very encouraging visit, and I kept him occupied all day. First we visited my supervisor with the artisans and discussed what I have been doing these past few months and talked about the issues with the payment of my rent. Afterwards I brought him to the NGO that I volunteer with and showed him the work that I trained the accountant and the pharmacy inventory manager to do. It is pretty basic, but no written records were kept before and now they keep written records and the accountant records the revenue and expenses of each day in excel. I played the radio spots for him too while I was filling out forms. He told me that those we were talking with had continued to say I was "useful and helpful to their organization" and that he was also impressed with what I was doing.

I don't always feel like I am accomplishing alot because of the amount of downtime in my life, but when someone tells me that my work makes a difference it gives me that little push of confidence that I need to have joy in my days. Before I was content, but now I also feel confident and excited about what the future holds. As I look towards the future I am realizing that one dream job would be working with refugees, counseling them about their experiences. I would like to do this in Chicago, possibly with Heartland Alliance which is a large organization that focuses on this in Chicago and other countries. It would be pretty awesome to study abroad for a few months in another countries and do field work with refugees. I would like to be based in the states for a long time but if I got married and eventually got offered a job overseas I could see for a short term (maybe 10 years from now). Short term goal after peace corps: hang out with friends and family of course, get a full time job in Chicago, volunteer with Heartland Alliance in Chicago by translating or helping refugees integrate into american culture. tentative other goals, take gre, apply to grad schools in chicago: university of chicago, depaul, loyola... I might start out part time and if I get the research assistant position for the division than I would go full time. Any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated.