Over the past few months a lot of sweat, tears, and planning have gone into putting together a weeklong camp for girls across West Amhara at the University of Gondar. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is an international Peace Corps program and Gondar’s camp is the longest running Ethiopia. When Camp GLOW first started in Ethiopia, there was only one camp – Gondar. This year, there were 12 camps around the country. Though legacy aside, each year the leadership team comes in new, and this year G8 (my group) and G7 (4 months ahead) took the reins. And clearly Gondar still dominates : )
Group shot at Fasil Castle
We broke the camp down by days: Gender Day, Education Day, Health Day, Environment Day, and Leadership Day. We chose girls through an essay contest and looked for qualities of leadership, community volunteerism and how they had overcome issues of gender inequality.
I’ll break down each of the days in its own blog post (with lots of photos), but in addition to all the learning, there was lots of fun, energizers, and even a few tears throughout the week as the girls got to know each other and bonded.
Gondar Girls
The goal was for these girls to bring back skills, and motivation to their towns. My Gondar girls have already called me to help them set up a visit to the Mission of Charities (an off-shoot of Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta) to visit with the residents (mentally and physically disabled, abandoned children etc.) and sing songs.
We had talent shows, sport in the mornings, sang songs and even had a yearbook signing at the end. My job was “logistics” – facilities, meals, medical emergency planning, registration, and water (yes, we did have a water issue- it is Ethiopia). During the camp I did less with programming, and more behind the scenes work to smooth over issues so the girls would have a great week.
I think I can officially market myself as an event planner. If I can plan basically a week long conference in Sub-Saharan Africa in a foreign language, I think I can do your event… will be available Jan. 2015… hint hint.
And my unofficial job during the week was camp photographer. So enjoy the next few posts, the girls definitely enjoyed the week.
Closing Ceremonies
“make me the injera”
AJ leading an energizer
Yordanos pulls in Morgan for some Skiskista (shoulder shaking)
Rosa does some traditional dancing at the Talent Show – love that hair.
morning sport
The Camp GLOW Yearbook
Closing ceremony tears… the girls made lots of new friends
And for more photos continue to follow the blog this week, check out my facebook album – https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153109300440523.1073741829.640805522&type=1&l=e66c9e40e2
Tags: camp GLOW, environment, Ethiopia, gender, Gondar, health, leadership, Peace Corps, volunteerism
Wanderings and Wonderings 