The Chosen 40

This past week 40 lucky girls from Ghana participated in the peer educator training as part of the Girls 1^st Programme. These 40 were selected amongst the 250 total that will be a part of the HIV prevention and basic business skills education. These 40 are unique in that they will receive vocational skills training as well to help them start individual businesses in their communities. The research conducted in the last week long trip showed that these girls want to learn hair braiding, cooking, and floral decoration. However, before they start their vocation training they need to learn to be peer educators so that they can teach other girls the basics of HIV prevention and transmission.

Monday, the very first day of the big training week, we started two hours late. We were supposed to start everything at 8 and by 10 girls were finally getting signed in. I don’t quite understand what happened, but apparently some girls arrived right at 8 and then left since no one was there. I know it is a best practice to work with local organizations, but sometimes it can be incredibly difficult. Luckily, this was only a brief snag in an otherwise very successful week. After this, everyone, especially the staff, showed up on time. One other interesting part of the day included the girls electing people to fill certain leadership positions. Two girls, who had been nominated by their friends, ran against each other for group leader. Abigail ended up winning, but what was so heartening about this was that the girl who didn’t prevail wasn’t that upset. She was thrilled to be the assistant leader. I love seeing people who have the exact opposite, but much healthier reaction to things than I would have in the same situation. Other girls were elected as first aid officer and finance officer. They didn’t have much to do this week, so I didn’t really get to know them.

Monday and Tuesday was spent mostly on HIV and STI related topics. One thing that was clear from the research is that the girls can write on paper all of the modes of transmission, but when pressed about how they would feel about a someone with HIV in their homes, many have significant fears of catching the disease as if it were similar to a common cold. Luckily many of those unnecessary fears were alleviated and the girls felt generally empowered to protect themselves. There is definitely a significant shyness though even amongst these 18 to 22 year olds about condoms and saying the proper names of “private parts.” They would all break into hysterics whenever anyone said the Twi version of penis. It happened again and again and I was starting to think that maybe we need to play the penis game several times so they could get over the issues with saying the word. The other disheartening thing related to this is their intense shyness with buying condoms. Teen pregnancy seems more socially acceptable than teen sex, which is sort of odd. The girls said that they would be judged by the pharmacist if they bought condoms. I was thinking of the luxury of anonymity that Americans enjoy with many of their purchases. In these little towns, everyone knows everyone is there is no enforcement of the code of confidentiality for pharmacists. We asked the girls how many would feel confident enough to buy a condom and about 5 of the forty raised their hands. I think this is something that should be seriously worked on since these girls are now the role models for other girls in their communities.

One powerful activity for the girls was a female speaker who came in to talk to the girls about HIV. She is a PLWHA (person living with HIV/AIDS) and was very open about how she contracted the disease, through a blood transfusion in the late 1990s, and the precautions she took to protect her last baby from getting HIV. Many of the girls had assumed that you would always be able to tell when someone is HIV+ so this was an eye opening experience for them. This woman was youthful looking and energetic. It was encouraging to see many of the girls go up to her after the talk to ask more questions. It also helped to have someone speak to the girls directly rather than seeing hypothetical situations in videos or from illustrated storybooks.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday focused on the more practical aspects of the program including saving money, basic business marketing strategies and leadership skills. One thing we noticed during our time of working in Koforidua in patronizing various retailers there, the customer service is horrendous. One example is that we would walk into one of two nice restaurants in the city and find the wait staff with the heads resting on the tables. There would be little effort to get up. One chop bar we were at yelled at some customers in front of us and told them that if they, the food preparers weren’t working fast enough, then the customers could just leave. It was pretty shocking. So, with that said, when the girls were told about being nice to customers and telling every customer to ‘please come back’ their response was that they had never thought of that before. Being nice to customers was something they had never considered. It should be pretty easy for these girls to succeed!

So, I really can’t say enough about what a magical group of girls these forty are. I was able to meet personally with five of them and also went to two of their homes to talk to their parents about the impact of the program on their households. The group consists of a mix of single teen parents, school drop outs, and illiterates. It would be nice to point to one reason that these girls fell out of the system or became parents at a very young age, but most of the reasons all relate to issues of poverty. School is compulsory until Junior High School and free in Ghana, at least on paper it is so. However, no one enforces school attendance and school uniforms and other accessories are not free but are mandatory. Many of the girls were single-parent orphans and had been moved from one family member to another until one finally told them that they couldn’t pay for them to go to school anymore. Others got pregnant and pregnant students are not permitted to attend school and were rejected when they attempted to return to school. It feels like the barriers are pretty great. Despite the challenges they faced in attending school, they are absolutely determined to succeed in their future businesses. One girl told me that she felt like she had no hope other than this program. It is pretty amazing what an impact a program like this can have on a group of people. While many girls credited the program with giving them a vocation so they can earn money, the confidence developed amongst the girls over the week was striking. Many had been quite shy and hesitant the first day. By Friday, they all wanted to participate and stand in front of the group. Several told me that they would like to stand in front of their church and educate the congregation on HIV. Another said that she was already presenting her new knowledge to a group of girls who were not selected to be peer educators. Five long days of sitting in a dusty unfinished classroom on hard wooden benches, changed them into confident role models for their community. Having met five of them, I saw so much potential in them. While I respect their vocational choice, Ghana would benefit so much more from them if they could expand their reach.

During the course of the week, I met with a Queen Mother, an Assemblyman and the staff of the Liberty Vocational Skills Training Program. The Liberty School staff showed us around the school and talked about their partnership with Girls 1^st. For a significant discount, they are going to train the girls in all of the major food preparation techniques that are popular in the community plus train them in catering and basic restaurant skills. The girls will need two uniforms and one notebook. Fortunately, the Red Cross budgeted enough money so that each girl will be provided with these free of charge. Upon hearing this, the girls jumped out of their chairs and cheered. Because uniforms are mandatory in schools, the symbol of the uniform made them all realize that they really were returning to school. The Liberty School is so excited for the program that they said we should send 10 more who aren’t the peer educators to them just so more people get training. It would be nice to give them all this opportunity, but there is probably something to be said for starting small and making sure these 40 succeed.

The regional director of the Red Cross invited several community leaders to the graduation ceremony. They, along with me, were asked to say a few words of encouragement to the girls. For some reason, my role as interned was drastically skewed into presenting me as a representative of MAC. Everyone turned to thank me for bringing the program to this region. There was a lot of clapping at me too, which I tried to humbly and graciously accept all while feeling a little guilty about accepting all of this gratitude. I figured that I better just go with it. I hoped my speech was inspiring. I had actually been asked the day before by one of the girls why I came all this way to help them when I am not their mother or their sister. It totally caught me off guard and how do explain something like that simply enough so that someone else can interpret it for you. I tried to incorporate this into my speech saying something like “everyone’s life includes both challenges and blessings, but it is what we do with both the challenges and the blessings that is a testament to our character.”

One part of this program that the girls educated me about was about the program slogan, “be a lady, no matter what.” There is a whole song they learned that starts with “I have decided to be a lady, no matter what.” I was a little worried that this slogan was vapid and potentially pandering. The idea of a “lady” is not especially empowering to my Western ideology and I was worried it focused too heavily on the abstinence themes emphasized in the HIV portion of the training. I decided to ask a few girls what it meant to them. It is really amazing the depths of meaning a few words can have to a person. The girls were emotional talking about how it means that despite someone’s circumstances they can make a better life for themselves. One girl said that it means that it is never too late to start over, while another told me that it means you don’t need to rely on anyone else, especially a guy, to solve your problems. Well, I was clearly wrong.