YGSP Part 1: The Program

For the last month or so a couple friends and I have been organizing a conference. With the help of other Peace Corps Volunteers across Hausa speaking Niger, we found 11 girls to come to Zinder and participate in the conference. The girls were chosen based on two criteria. First, that had to be in good standing at their current high school. And second, that they are from a small rural village. The intention was to bring the girls to Zinder (a city all but two of them had only heard of and never visited) and participate in a range of activities. The theme of the program was to make the girls think about their futures and what they hope to achieve with their education. We also aimed to motivate them in their studies, give them some tools to improve their study methods, help them build their self-confidence, and also just to have fun.

I loved doing this project and it was probably the most fun 5 days I’ve had in country. That is not to say that I wasn’t stressed and exhausted for the entire duration of the program, but the girls were absolutely wonderful. I’ll come back to that later.

While the program spanned five days there were really just three full days of activities once travel was factored in. The first day was geared towards exploring post-high school opportunities if they get their diplomas. We started with a conversation discussing the different opportunities and then went to visit three different professional schools in Zinder, meeting with both administrators and students to get a feel for each of the different programs. We started with the Ecole Normale where students are trained to become teachers. We then went to the E.N.S.P. an acronym which I’m forgetting but is to train health workers (nurses, lab technicians, and midwives mostly). And finally, we went to a business skills type school where they do computer, secretarial, and accounting training. After the visits we held a brief self-defense class (where I got to “attack” the girls to help them practice getting away from assailants). The day ended with an evening discussion on women’s empowerment by a local Nigerien NGO worker who is fantastic.

The second day was professional women’s day. We started with a panel with a group of four professional women in Zinder. We had a midwife, an NGO worker, a government worker, and an education administrator come and discuss their personal paths to success, highlighting education in their lives, what obstacles they faced and how they overcame them, and how it is that they are able to balance being both professional women and also mothers/wives at the same time. After the panel and discussion we divided the girls among the women to accompany them to their places of work and then afterwards to their homes. It was great visiting the girls and seeing them put to work and getting a real taste of some different jobs (two girls got to sit in on an organization wide meeting with a guest from France).

The third and final day we spent the morning working with a small group of peer educators discussing study habits and study strategies. The intention was, having shown them what different opportunities education can open, to give them some tools to better manage their studies as well as some concrete techniques to be a more effective student. After the morning session we finished with what I considered the highlight of the program. We went to the city’s local radio station and recorded a radio show with the girls. The program discussed some of the obstacles to education for girls in Niger, but most importantly, we gave each girl an opportunity to talk about education in their lives, what they hoped to do with their futures should they successfully finish high school, and also just to greet their friends and those who had helped them with their studies. It was pretty awesome. The girls were super excited.

The evening was finally just fun time. I’ll come back to it later, but it was amazing…

The next morning at 4am it was time to get up, and take the girls from Maradi and Konni to the bus station. Of course, it being Niger, when we got to the bus station we were told that the bus was broken, so me and a friend took mad dashes in opposite directions praying that we could find another bus line that A) hadn’t already left and B) had space for our girls and the volunteers they had come with. Luckily it worked out, but it was nice getting a little unexpected 4:30am exercise.

I’m not really gonna conclude this cus I have more to say coming up, but as I said before, I loved this project. I think the girls got tons out of it and I was really really sad saying goodbye to them at the end.