A quick check-in from South Africa

Hi everyone,

I thought I would send a quick update on where I am and what I am up to at the moment. I am still on the Rank Award grant, researching and gaining experience in interventions aimed at working with young women.

I am currently in Johannesburg, South Africa, working with a missionary organisation called 'Cherish', who run 8-week programs with girls and young women educating them on their worth and value, sex and relationships, HIV/AIDS and how to live a 'pure' life. 

I flew out to South Africa on 18th January and spent the first two weeks in Worcester, on the Western Cape. Whilst I was there, I organised and spoke at a large conference for teenage girls. Twenty-one girls attended from the local farming area and I taught on identity, true femininity and self-expression. The day consisted of teaching, practical activities, arts and crafts and a free lunch for the girls. We had really great, positive feedback from all the girls that attended and they've apparently already been asking when I will return for the next girls' conference!

On 1st February, I flew to Johannesburg where I started working with Cherish. On my second weekend here, we drove to Swaziland to deliver training in how to set-up and run Cherish groups. I helped to deliver the training as well as participating in the training itself! We had a wonderful weekend of fun, particularly on the first night when 10 minutes into the training session, the power cut out and we had to complete the session by candlelight!

Training local women in Swaziland how to educate young girls about sex and HIV/AIDS

During my time in Johannesburg I have set up and I am currently running four Cherish groups; one in a local school, one in a home for girls, one in a shelter for women who have been abused and one in the local community. I am also teaching two creative workshops for girls, including a dance class, leading a bible study, mentoring some girls one-on-one and tutoring one girl in Maths and English. So I'm keeping pretty busy and out of trouble!

I am currently writing up my proposal of what I plan to do with all this experience and training once I return to the UK. My vision and passion is to set up a program where girls can learn about their identity, worth, sex and relationships and what being a woman really means, in a safe environment. At the heart of most of the issues young girls face today are low self-esteem, lack of identity and faulty views on what it means to be a girl - I'd like to address these root issues before they turn into bigger problems. At the moment, I am figuring out the finer details of how this will look and what my next steps need to be. I'll keep you all informed of how this is going once I return to the UK. I am also in correspondence with projects I met on the GSE and talking with them about how we can network and what we can do to help them. What an amazing adventure this is!!