9
Global Grassroots 2011
Now I am able to discuss with my children reproductive health and change of life... Before, I was ashamed to talk about it, but now ... I can advise them about the consequences of their actions. This project has helped me to know my responsibilities as a parent and as a neighbor... We need to support girls and promote a bright future for them.
-Beneficiary of *Think About the Young Girls
On Educating Daughters*
"None of us had the chance to attend school when we were children,” Seraphine explains. With her left hand, she smoothes a fold in her blue cloth head wrap. “Our culture said that no girls should go to school. Girls must stay at home, do domestic work, and take care of others. They only sent some boys to school. It was a very bad thing, that we didn’t have access to education when we were young. Our literacy class with Let Us Build Ourselves was our very first time to have access to education."
Seraphine recently graduated from the literacy course offered to vulnerable, undereducated women by Global Grassroots venture Let Us Build Ourselves. She is a mother who makes her living selling tomatoes. “Before I joined this class, I didn’t consider education to be important. I didn’t even think that it was necessary for my children to go to school – it’s a waste of money. That was my mindset before I joined this class.”
“Now, in our families, all girls and all boys are in class. It’s not like before, when our parents used to send boys only.” Seraphine smiles proudly. “Now we send all the children to school.”
photo by Laya Madsen
photo by Laya Madsen
On Girls' Hygiene & Reproductive Health*