Over 100 girls get skills on rights, values

Over 100 teen girls are expected to benefit from the newly launched educational and leadership development project in Uganda.

Project Soar in a box (PSB) is a leadership development prog+ramme founded in Morocco in 2013 by an American designer, feminist and humanitarian worker Maryam Montague to empower the girl child.

Project Soar provides 50 lessons to empower teenage girls in the developing world. The Project Soar programme is based on the five pillars of empowerment, which embody our beliefs that every girl should have the opportunity to know her value, voice, body, rights and path.

Montague who is currently in the country to launch this project and presiding over a ten days workshop to provide local facilitators with tools they need to empower the African girl child.

She said that any country needs empowered girls to develop."No country can develop without empowered girls; they are equally needed in the economic development processes." Montague said.

Maryam Montague sharing experiences with trained local faciliatators of the project soar in a box at Eureka place, Ntinda on Tuesday

While closing the training at Eureka place Ntinda on Tuesday, Montague told the New Vision that this programme is important because there is still a need to empower the girl child in Africa for the continuity of the feminist movement.

"With the existing HIV, female genital mutilation and a crisis of self-esteem, we need to empower our girls to fight back," Montague said.She added that Uganda topped the list when choosing countries to extend this programme in Africa.

"When it came to Project Soar expansion in Africa, Uganda was top on our list because of its unique gender policy that seeks to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment," Montague added.

The training of these facilitators was organised by Open space Centre; an agency whose work, focuses on the broadening of space and opportunities for young people in unlocking their full potential through debate and leadership skills.

Ten girl's local facilitators were provided with tools and skills they need to empower 100 teenage girls in five high schools in Uganda.

The schools include Kinaawa High School Kawempe, Baptist High School Kabowa, St. Francis Secondary School Katooke, Kisaasi College School in Kawempe and St. Joseph Girls secondary school in  Nsambya.Open space Centre team leader, Wakibu Bunnya explained that they chose the five schools because of their unique backgrounds.

"We know most of these schools have a humble background and through this project soar, we will be able to have more young girls benefiting from our leadership trainings" Wakibu said.

According to Wakibu, two girls will be distributed equally to each of the five designated schools for the period of one year.

Over 35 workshops are expected to be held.Jessica Rushing the coordinator for Project Soar, in in Morocco who was also one of the trainers, urged the local facilitators not to involve religious sentiments while training the girls.

"This programme is about empowerment and not intended to attack anyone's culture or religion. Do not use politics, religion or bad language while training the girls," Rushing advised.

Racheal Konso one of the trained local facilitators acknowledged the importance of the training they received."The training was amazing.

We learnt a lot and we received skills on  how to empower our fellow girls to know their values and rights," Konso said.
 
Nanjobe Hawa who also attended the training applauded the training.
 
"This is one of the best trainings I have ever attended in my life. At first, it was a little challenging but now I have the skills on how to tell all the girls to be confident," Nanjobe said.
 
According to Open space Centre, the programme is expected to be extended to more high schools after 2019. 

Over 100 teen girls are expected to benefit from the newly launched educational and leadership development project in Uganda.
 
Project Soar in a box (PSB) is a leadership development programme founded in Morocco in 2013 by an American designer, feminist and humanitarian worker Maryam Montague to empower the girl child.

Project Soar provides 50 lessons to empower teenage girls in the developing world. The Project Soar programme is based off the five pillars of empowerment, which embody our beliefs that every girl should have the opportunity to know her value, voice, body, rights and path.
 
Montague who is currently in the country to launch this project and presiding over a ten days workshop to provide local facilitators with tools they need to empower the African girl child. She said that any country needs empowered girls to develop.
 
"No country can develop without empowered girls; they are equally needed in the economic development processes." Montague said.

While closing the training at Eureka place Ntinda on Tuesday, Montague told the New Vision that this programme is important because there is still a need to empower the girl child in Africa for the continuity of the feminist movement.
 
"With the existing HIV, female genital mutilation and a crisis of self-esteem, we need to empower our girls to fight back," Montague said.
She added that Uganda topped the list when choosing countries to extend this programme in Africa.
 
"When it came to Project Soar expansion in Africa, Uganda was top on our list because of its unique gender policy that seeks to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment," Montague added.
 
The training of these facilitators was organised by Open space Centre; an agency whose work, focuses on the broadening of space and opportunities for young people in unlocking their full potential through debate and leadership skills.
 
Ten girl's local facilitators were provided with tools and skills they need to empower 100 teenage girls in five high schools in Uganda.
 
The schools include Kinaawa High School Kawempe, Baptist High School Kabowa, St. Francis Secondary School Katooke, Kisaasi College School in Kawempe and St. Joseph Girls secondary school in  Nsambya.
 
Open space Centre team leader, Wakibu Bunnya explained that they chose the five schools because of their unique backgrounds.
"We know most of these schools have a humble background and through this project soar, we will be able to have more young girls benefiting from our leadership trainings" Wakibu said.
 
According to Wakibu, two girls will be distributed equally to each of the five designated schools for the period of one year. Over 35 workshops are expected to be held.
 
Jessica Rushing the coordinator for Project Soar, in in Morocco who was also one of the trainers, urged the local facilitators not to involve religious sentiments while training the girls.
 
"This programme is about empowerment and not intended to attack anyone's culture or religion. Do not use politics, religion or bad language while training the girls," Rushing advised.
 
Racheal Konso one of the trained local facilitators acknowledged the importance of the training they received.
 
"The training was amazing. We learnt a lot and we received skills on  how to empower our fellow girls to know their values and rights," Konso said.
 
Nanjobe Hawa who also attended the training applauded the training.
 
"This is one of the best trainings I have ever attended in my life. At first, it was a little challenging but now I have the skills on how to tell all the girls to be confident," Nanjobe said.
 
According to Open space Centre, the programme is expected to be extended to more high schools after 2019.