Saturday, December 26, 2009

I have a dream


This week one of the sessions in the girls' empowerment program was devoted to thinking about dreams. In the session the girls reflected on different kinds of questions: What is a dream? Why are dreams important? What are my dreams?

The idea was to get the girls thinking about their hopes for the future. If one has a dream, the logic of the session goes, one can begin to envision the steps one needs to take in order to make one's dream come true. Since these are girls who have minimal schooling, many of them have been taught that their main calling in life is housework and child care. If they could dream up a future for themselves, what might it look like?

To help the girls start thinking about goals that they might pursue, the group leaders read an excerpt from the "I have a dream" speech that was translated into Wolof. (This was not an easy passage to follow, but hopefully the 13-16 year olds have a better Wolof vocabulary than I do.) After we discussed the speech, the girls were told to close their eyes and imagine themselves at age 40. What memory would make them the happiest? What would they have liked to achieved? What would they have done that they would be proud of?

Each of the sixteen girls drew a picture of her three answers, and then they shared their dreams with the rest of the group. Perhaps this shouldn't have been surprising, but I found the similarity in the girls' answers striking. Three themes emerged as the runaway winners: studying and getting a diploma (14 girls mentioned this), sending one or both parents to Mecca (10 girls), and building their parents a house (9 girls). About ten girls also mentioned having some kind of career aspiration, from just "working" (2) to being President or Mayor (5).

Without reading too much into the exercise, it is obvious that almost every girl wishes she had been able to attend school. Some of them have never attended, while others went for a few years before they were pulled out to help with housework, or because "girls don't need to go far in school since they are just going to become wives and mothers." Each girl who completes the empowerment program will be recognized at the year end ceremony next July. I've been told that every year there are proud tears as the girls receive their diplomas.

The other clear message is how much social status and recognition comes from doing right by one's parents. Sending your mother to Mecca, or building a house for your father, is a clear sign of a good son or daughter who puts the needs of others (particularly parents) first. Perhaps this is not a radical path to girls' empowerment, but these girls have definitely learned what is valued by their society and culture.

Perhaps most interesting was the brainstorming session about how to begin working to make their dreams come true. My favorite answers: be determined, respect yourself, get up early, don't sleep until the sun is high in the sky, be ready to work hard and sweat, and don't get married too young. Words to live by. You go girls!

1 comment:

  1. you described my favorite kind of education - love it, great post.

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