A month in photos: February 2013
- The first meeting of Girls on the Rise — a girl’s club that my counterpart Yama and I started at the high school in my village. The club is open to anyone and will run until November. We will teach about health issues, self-esteem, love problems (that one is on Yama), sex, really anything else a high school girl would want to talk about. With 38 teenage pregnancies last year at the high school, we can only hope this club will help girls make the right decisions for their futures. My counterpart rocks and organized all the girls. We will meet twice a month. During our first meeting we had the girls draw and discuss their “self-image”, how they see themselves, which I think they enjoyed! (more to come on Girls on the Rise as it takes off!)
- Pen pal project with my City Year school Markham Middle School in Watts and also Stevenson Middle School in Boyle Heights of Los Angeles. My former roommates Marissa and Josh are team leaders this year at each school! Hopefully I can send the letters this week, but there’s a post office strike (Africa always wins).
- Learners helping me label library books, which of course got out of hand
- Other randoms from February
- Sketching their self-images at Girls on the Rise!
- Mine and my counterpart, Yama’s, self-images
- Secondary students presenting how they view themselves
- 50+ girls joined the Girls on the Rise club!
- Opening prayer at school (yes school was cancelled for half of the day for this)
- Beautiful Friday walk
- Cooking for 75 parents at the parent’s meeting. I’ve never peeled so many carrots in my life
- I ignorantly call this the Africa Tree
- Luyanda, Thandeka and Thobeka at our monthly Battlefields sleepover
- IS that a mop? No, it’s my hair. It’s growing…
- Grade 7 with their pen pal letters to Stevenson Middle School!
- Grade 6 with their pen pal letters for Markham Middle School, my old stomping grounds!
- Sharing Ubuntu! And teaching American students some Zulu
- My Mama Mathebula lookin’ so fresh in a dress she made!
- Helping me label library books. It was fun at first, but then got too crazy
Yours in service,
