From the New Oxford American Dictionary: Empowerment- make (someone) stronger and more confident, esp. in controlling their life and claiming their rights.
I’ve been back from my Ghana GCELE experince for 1 month now. It’s taken me this long to process and reflect on the experinces that I had while I was there. I feel as though I will be reflecting on my experince for the rest of my life. There were so many moving, profound and educational moments. I want to write about one in particular that happened on June 12 while I was at a junior school in the rural community of Duori.
Our team conducted a health needs assessment and a focus group with the students of the junior school on June 11. During our focus group, we broke up the group of students into a boys group and a girls group, thinking that we may have a more open conversation if we did that. Our hunch was correct. I was partnered with 2 of my fellow GCELE mates and 1 faculty member as well as Awo, our wonderful Ghanaian guide and fixer. The 5 of us sat in a circle under the shade of a mango tree with 22 female students and discussed some of the health challenges that they are faced with. The topic of menstrual health and hygiene came up. As the young women opened up and started discusssing their concerns and questions, we came to understand that their basic needs were not being met. These young women had very little access to feminine hygiene products and if they did, the products were unaffordable to them. So in place of sanitary pads, they would use rags, cloth or even leaves. Often the girls would miss days of school for fear of having an “accident” while in class. We asked them if they would be interested in learning how to make a reusable, washable menstrual pad. They responded with a resounding YES!
The next day, on June 12, myself, Amisa (fellow GCELE-er) and Awo returned to the school and sat with the same group of 22 young women under the shade of the same mango tree. In my predeparture blog post, I talked about imagining sitting around a table with nursing students making Afropads. Well, here I was, in Duori, sitting around a table making Afropads. But instead of nursing students, I was with junior school students. As I cut out the pattern for the Afropad, I explained to these young women that I was sharing my knowledge with them and now they had the responsibility of sharing their new knowledge with their mothers, sisters and girlfriends. That they now had the skills and knowledge to take take control of their menstrual health and hygiene. All of these young women were engaged and involved in making Afropads. It was such a privilege and a blessing to witness this sense of empowerment coming through these young women.
This experience really made me stop and reflect on the meaning of empowerment and how I’ve used the word in the past. I ride a motorcycle. When I’m asked how riding a motorcycle makes me feel, I would casually answer that being on a bike gave me sense of empowerment. After the deeply moving experience I had with these amazing young women in Duori, I no longer use the word empowerment in describing my motorcycle riding. Compared to what I saw and felt with these women, riding a bike is small potatoes. Make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights. I feel that I played a small part in empowering 22 young women in the rural community of Duori, Ghana.
