Recently, we met a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal who is doing some excellent work helping people at a major hospital in Dakar and at a high school in a suburb of Dakar to establish and build gardens adjacent to the institutional buildings. There are some images of those gardens in our recent posts. Since our return home, he has written to us about another project that he and other Peace Corps volunteers are undertaking, camps for girls. He writes:
"Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal have started to develop annual, week long girls' camps in different regions. The camps range in age groups, but generally are designed to give females a safe, open space to discuss crucial gender issues (that they might not be able to elsewhere), learn about the environment, health-related issues, the importance of education, etc, and, of course, to have fun. This year the Dakar region is hosting the second annual girls' camp the first week in October. A number of volunteers in the Dakar region are participating, using our combined knowledge of Health/Environment Education, Small Enterprise development, and Agriculture. I'll be helping out with a few of the environmental sessions, basically helping spread the work about moringa and showing the usefulness of bottles and such as alternative containers. We're all set to go, save for a bit of fund raising."
So, Janet and I contributed a few bucks and we are hoping that some of our Breaking Away blog readers might wish to do the same. If you wish to view the girls' camp project on the Peace Corps site and consider making a donation, which is tax deductible, please visit:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-178
Excerpt from the PC website:
"...Our main objective with this camp is to help these young women see the importance of school and how it benefits both themselves and their family lives; in short, creating the perfect work/life balance...."
And for more information and updates, please let us know. John and Janet
"Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal have started to develop annual, week long girls' camps in different regions. The camps range in age groups, but generally are designed to give females a safe, open space to discuss crucial gender issues (that they might not be able to elsewhere), learn about the environment, health-related issues, the importance of education, etc, and, of course, to have fun. This year the Dakar region is hosting the second annual girls' camp the first week in October. A number of volunteers in the Dakar region are participating, using our combined knowledge of Health/Environment Education, Small Enterprise development, and Agriculture. I'll be helping out with a few of the environmental sessions, basically helping spread the work about moringa and showing the usefulness of bottles and such as alternative containers. We're all set to go, save for a bit of fund raising."
So, Janet and I contributed a few bucks and we are hoping that some of our Breaking Away blog readers might wish to do the same. If you wish to view the girls' camp project on the Peace Corps site and consider making a donation, which is tax deductible, please visit:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-178
Excerpt from the PC website:
"...Our main objective with this camp is to help these young women see the importance of school and how it benefits both themselves and their family lives; in short, creating the perfect work/life balance...."
And for more information and updates, please let us know. John and Janet
