02/11/2015
What a great page! Especially for young girls :)
When Colorado native Jessica Posner prepared for a semester abroad in Kenya in 2007, she had no idea how much the experience would change her life and the lives of hundreds of girls in the years to come. A professor at Wesleyan University recommended she contact Kennedy Odede, the founder of a theater group in Kibera, one of Kenya’s most impoverished slums. Nearly eight years later, she and Odede, now husband and wife, are founders of the Kibera School for Girls, the slum's first free primary school for girls, which brings education and hope to nearly 200 girls who would otherwise lack access to education.
Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa; over one million people live there, with no paved roads, clean water, or sewers. When Posner first traveled there, there were also no schools or hospitals. Odede had founded a theater group there to educate residents of the slum about gender violence and HIV, one of few effective ways to teach large groups without an existing educational system. Initially, Odede wasn’t sure if Posner really wanted to help or if she was a “slum tourist”, interested in ogling the residents but not in getting her hands dirty. She proved herself, though, by not only digging in to help, but actually living in Kibera, something no white visitor had ever done.
As Posner and Odede’s relationship deepened, she arranged for Wesleyan to accept his late application so that Odede could fulfill a dream of going to college. When she returned to Wesleyan in August 2008, he came too. Odede’s other dream, to open a school for girls in Kibera, became Posner’s passion too, and when she graduated in 2009, Odede and Posner returned to Kibera with $10,000 in grant money and Posner’s savings from babysitting, determined to make the dream real. They built the school, hired teachers, and opened the doors, all within a few months.
Since its doors opened, the school has expanded rapidly and, at full capacity, it will serve 400 girls in grades pre-K through 8th grade. So far, the results have been excellent: while only 15 to 21% of second graders in Kenya can read an English paragraph and perform subtraction, 100% of KSG’s second graders can do so. Their larger foundation, SHOFCO (Shining Hope For Communities), also runs an employment center, a health clinic, and a violence-against-women prevention center, and last September, they opened a second school for girls in Mathare, Kenya’s second largest slum.
Posner and Odede married in 2014, right after Odede’s graduation, then postponed their honeymoon to return to Kibera and “their girls”. Posner explains that their desire to help the girls and women of Kibera and their love for one another mesh perfectly. Speaking to NBC News, she said, “I feel so lucky to get to work with somebody that I love and admire so deeply….Yes, this is home.”
To learn more about the Kibera School for Girls -- and how to support their important work -- visit their website at http://www.shofco.org/project/ksg or follow them on Facebook at Shining Hope for Communities.
Their story is also told in the new documentary, A Path Appears, which you can learn about at http://apathappears.org/film/
For several books for young readers about girls and the power of education, we recommend "Razia's Ray of Hope: One Girl's Dream of an Education" for ages 7 to 10 (http://www.amightygirl.com/razia-s-ray-of-hope), "Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan" for ages 6 to 9 (http://www.amightygirl.com/nasreens-secret-school) and "A Girl Called Problem" for ages 9 to 14 (http://www.amightygirl.com/a-girl-called-problem).
For more books to help children understand the struggle for girls' access to education in many parts of the world, check out our blog post "Honoring Malala: Mighty Girl Books on Children's Fight for Education" at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog/?p=4057
And, for books to inspire your kids to make a difference, both locally and globally, check out our blog “Making an Impact: Mighty Girl Books about Charity and Community Service” at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=5863
Photo credit: Audrey Hall / SHOFCO
