One Girl

Spotted : Deb and Meike on Sierra Leoneon soil

Kat — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:24:41 +0000

Deb and Meike, happy to be here!

Deb and Meike touched down in Sierra Leone on Sunday afternoon. You might remember Meike from our German Wonderwoman post? She raised almost $4000 to send a class of girls to school! Deb’s been a long time supporter to One Girl, and has contributed in too many ways to count!

But their awesomeness doesn’t stop there – these two wonderful women will be working with the Australian and Sierra Leoneon team to increase their project management skills. They bring years of experience in facilitation and management to the table. We’re excited to have them!

We can do more than scholarships

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:22:29 +0000

For the last 12 months, we’ve been telling you that $20 a month, or $240 a year can provide a scholarship to a girl in Sierra Leone. We want to take a minute to explain how we got to this number, and why we’re changing our message.

A quick maths equation for you. Our 2010 Back to School program cost $24,000. That $24,000 provided 100 girls with scholarships. This means that it cost, on average, $240 per year, per girl – or $20 a month.

In actual fact, the price of each scholarship varies from community to community. The cost of uniforms and school fees change depending on what grade the girl is in, what school she’s attending and the type of uniform that she needs.

Here’s a rough breakdown so you can see how the costs vary from girl to girl depending on what grade she’s in.

Some of our girls are moving out of primary school into high school. As our girls grow up, the cost to keep them in school increases. We can’t keep telling you that it costs just $20 a month (or $240 a year) to provide a scholarship to one girl, because the cost changes every year.

We’re realising that girls face other challenges too.

Some of the schools we work with don’t have the capacity to accept more One Girl scholars. Our goal was to provide 50 new scholarships to girls in high school this year – but the local high school already has 57 students per class. There simply isn’t enough space to send 50 more girls to school.

One of the primary schools we work in conduct their classes under a tree because they’ve run out of space for the girls. During the rainy season, they pitch a tent and hope that the storms don’t wash them away.

Classes taken under a tree

Many of the schools we work in don’t have toilets, so girls leave school early just to use the bathroom. They’re missing out on an education because they don’t have a toilet.

So what do we do?

Do we say – “We ONLY give scholarships to individual girls, so let’s leave this area because these communities don’t have the capacity to take on more scholars?”

Do we do bring together the amazing One Girl Monthly Supporters and do what we can to give as many girls in Sierra Leone an opportunity to attend school?

We’ve chosen the latter.

If you’re a One Girl Monthly Supporter, then your $20 a month contribution will still give a girl access to an education – since it pays for all the things girls need to attend school (books, uniforms, school fees) – as well as that, your $20 will be used to create ‘girl friendly’ schools as well.

We’re removing the “scholarship” part of our message. We don’t want to promise that your $20 will only be spent on scholarships, when we know that we can do so much more. From now on, $20 a month will give one girl an education.

We’re dedicated to giving as many girls as possible an opportunity to attend school, and we’ll continue to innovate and evolve to make this happen.

If you’d like to learn more about the work we’re doing, check out What We Do.

If you want to join the One Girl Monthly Supporter Team, then click here.

How a 13 year old can change the world

admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:24:40 +0000

Last night, David (co-founder) spoke to Ena Harmon, One Girl’s Country Director in Sierra Leone. She told Dave about a girl, an 11 year old living in the slums of Freetown. She has resorted to prostition because she has no other option. She needs to eat, she needs to survive.

Today, we read a message from one of our donors, a girl in Australia, only 13 years old.

“I am only 13 but I am really passionate about helping girls my age who have to go through traumas I couldn’t even imagine going through! I hope this donation makes a difference, thank you for all your hard work with this amazing organisation!”

How amazing is that? 13 year old girls are looking after their sisters on the other side of the world. A 13 year old who cares.

Just beautiful.

Women Entrepreneurs Are Taking the World By Storm

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:59:50 +0000

It seems that everywhere we look, we see great examples of what women are capable of achieving. Women entrepreneurs are reinventing themselves with a fresh outlook and an exciting new approach to traditional (aka. boring) business.

Natalie Sisson is one example of that. Natalie is known as the ‘Suitcase Entrepreneur‘ and she’s one half of a power duo that created WE Mastermind – a killer program that helps women rock their businesses online. Natalie has successfully turned her passion for travel into a thriving business and now she’s decided to give something back by supporting One Girl. (Yay!)

Natalie knows that it wouldn’t be possible to design her own life if she’d never been given access to education – now she’s using her business powers to give the gift of education to girls in developing countries.

“When we launched Women Entrepreneur’s Mastermind, it was a no brainer to donate 5% of our profits to support One Girl. As women in business, earning our way in this world by doing what we love and using our skills and education to do this, it makes sense that we want other to have that same freedom, regardless of their circumstances.

The future of our world falls into the capable hands of young girls so it’s imperative we ensure they are given the right to education, self development, adequate healthcare and the right opportunities to ensure they one day will become powerful women, leading a new generation of young girls to carry on our legacy.”

Natalie Sisson and Natalie MacNeil

So far, WE Mastermind have donated $1,500 to our Back to School program in Sierra Leone. This donation will make a massive difference to our girls in Sierra Leone. WE Mastermind have proved that when women come together, we can transform the lives of girls around the world.

So a very special thanks Natalie S, Natalie M and WE Mastermind!

GIRL POWER!

An exceptional woman : Deanna

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:24:21 +0000

It’s not very often that you see a grown adult walking around with a school dress on. Last month we asked you to put on a school dress and you got up to all sorts of crazy shenanigans in your dresses.

We had 77 champions sign up and even managed to get international school dress wearers spanning from New York to Thailand to Spain to Saudi Arabia. It has been our most successful campaign yet and we can’t tell you how overwhelmed and touched we are by how many of you (in particular men) were willing to put on a dress to provide our girls in Sierra Leone with scholarships for the year.

So far we have raised over $41,000 which is AMAZING! 100 girls will be heading to school in 2012 thanks to your support. Plus we now have more than $15,000 in startup funding for LaunchPad.

From the bottom of our hearts we want to say a massive, gigantic thank you to all those who have got involved. With only a couple of days left until it’s all over we thought we’d help you reach out by interviewing one of our superstars (who is currently in the lead for raising the most), Deanna Hood. Here’s why she’s such a girl champ…

Deanna, tell us a bit about yourself? What’s your background? What makes you smile?

To sum me up, I’m a student. I’m just finishing after five years of studying maths and electrical engineering bachelors at QUT in Brisbane, and I’ve loved (mostly) every minute of it – learning new things is really one of my passions in life. But baking is up there too!

And how did you first hear about One Girl?

I actually met the One Girl founders, Chantelle and David, at a conference called Brightest Young Minds in 2009. It’s been incredible watching them do such wonderful things with One Girl, but then it twigged one day that DIIAD was my opportunity to do something wonderful for One Girl too, even if it was small in comparison.

Being a girl student yourself, why do you feel education is so important in changing the world today? In particular, education for girls around the world?

At QUT I’m the president of the Women in Engineering club and so am pretty keen on empowering women through education locally, but of course it’s at a much different level here in Australia. We are all fortunate enough to have an education pretty much forced on us, which causes us to much too often take for granted that we even have the ability to read.

In other countries, education, especially for girls, is not commonplace, so when presented with the opportunity to go to school they embrace it with all that they can. These children recognise it as the chance for their whole family to break out of the vicious cycle of poverty and into the virtuous cycle of education.

You are currently the highest fundraiser in our campaign so far. Way to go! Can you tell us what did you do for Do It In a Dress? And how you managed to get the support of so many of your friends and family?

I wore a dress for one week but was determined to fill the week with embarrassing things like presenting at a networking event and going to a concert. I think the difficulty in fundraising is to move people from supporting what you’re doing, to supporting it enough to get involved. I’m guilty myself of happily watching Chantelle’s month in a school dress as a bystander until she asked if I would do more. So from that I sent personalised messages to all of my friends, always carried a money box and online donation cards with me, and tried to spread the word through email and newspapers. I even managed quite a few donations from strangers thanks to my ‘ask me why’ sign – otherwise people would just stare at me!

Were there outstanding moments from Do It In A Dress? Any funny stories you wish to share?
I was really nervous about going to the hardcore concert in my school dress.. partly because it was 18+ and my sister had me convinced that I wouldn’t get in! But it turned out to be the time of the week when I got the least looks – I guess when you’re standing next to a guy with tattoos all over his face, you seem quite normal! The rest of the time it was quite empowering for myself, knowing that everyone was looking at me but not knowing what was going on.

I did occasionally find myself really frustrated when I would walk through the city and be like “why the heck is everyone staring at me?!” having gotten too used to wearing my dress towards the end of the week. But it can be possible to get used to fundraising too – watching the tally go up $20 at a time seems to have desensitised me to what I know is a lot of money. What helps me keep things in perspective is remembering when I first signed up for DIIAD and I saw the leaderboard – “Mum! This girl raised eight-hundred dollars!! How is that even possible?” Given that I thought my initial target of $500 was ambitious, I can’t believe how far I’ve come with everyone’s support!

Well you definitely smashed your target, and we want to say a massive thank you. Tell us now Do It In a Dress is all over, what’s on the cards now for Deanna Hood?

I hope to pursue a masters of robotics in Europe next year.. I’ll definitely be taking my school dresses!

If you’d like to help us keeping smashing our target of $40,000 please visit www.doitinadress.com. YEAH!

The power of One Girl

admin — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 05:08:41 +0000

Growing up as a girl in the ‘Western World’ I was lucky enough to have an education readily available to me. In fact it wasn’t just available to me, it was a must. For a girl, like Isha in Sierra Leone it’s a very different story.

For her a right to education is often an ongoing battle. Girls like her in Sierra Leone have just a 1 in 6 chance of going to high school. Poverty, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, or household chores can stop girls all over the world from going to school. According to the Girl Effect ‘out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls’*

But did you know that by educating one girl you are making an investment for the entire community? How you ask?

Well, by educating one girl, we are not just educating her, but her whole family and even her whole community and so the cycle spreads. That is the power of one girl and that’s the power of the girl effect.
That is why this week we’re asking you to Do It In A Dress. Across Australia and around the world, we’ve seen everyday heroes like yourselves put on their school dresses and show it off around town.

It’s now day 5 and we’ve already raised a whoppin’ $20,562. This means that 82 girls like Isha are able to go back to school all thanks to you. With 24 days to go, it’s not too late to get involved. So go on dust off your old school dresses, have some fun and help send a girl like Isha back to school. And to all our donors we want to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU – more than 350 people have donated to support our girls in Sierra Leone. Inspiring huh?

Doing It In A Dress for Kadiatu

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 07:17:09 +0000

The gorgeous Kadiatu
Kadiatu is ten years old. She’s beautiful isn’t she? We met Kadiatu in January during our first meeting in Sierra Leone with our scholars.

Kadiatu’s story is one of hope. She’s a shining example of what’s possible when a girl is given access to education.

When Kadiatu was just seven years old, both her parents passed away. We never found out why – death is commonplace in Sierra Leone. Very little importance is placed on ‘how’ someone dies – they’re dead. Get on with it.

Kadiatu was very quickly taken from a loving home and sent to live with her grandmother in a neighbouring village. Because Kadiatu’s parents had died – her grandmother was now responsible for looking after her. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

As soon as Kadiatu arrived at her grandmother’s, it became very apparent that life was going to be very different from now on. Kadiatu’s grandmother believed that Kadie had been sent to look after HER, not the other way around. Her grandmother didn’t believe there was any point in educating a girl. At just seven years of age, Kadiatu was taken out of school and put to work.

Waking up at 5am to collect large buckets of water became commonplace. Kadiatu spent her days working on the farm, collecting fruits and vegetables and then selling them at the market. She was responsible for collecting firewood, cooking all the meals and cleaning her grandmother’s house. From the age of seven, Kadiatu was working 16 hours a day to earn her keep. School became a distant memory, and Kadiatu slowly began to forget what life had been like before.
Kadiatu selling her produce at the market

Three years later, Kadiatu was sitting in the market selling vegetables when Mr. Kargbo, the principal from the local school approached her.

“How old are you?” Mr Kargbo asked.

“I’m ten.” Kadiatu responded.

“Why aren’t you going to school?” he questioned.

Kadiatu quietly shared her story with the school principal.

Mr. Kargbo knew that although child labour is common in Sierra Leone, Kadiatu’s workload was far beyond normal. She should be in school, not catering to her grandmother’s every whim.

Mr. Kargbo made a mental note of Kadiatu’s situation, and promised that he’d do something about it. A few weeks later, he got his chance.

Mr. Kargbo heard that Ena (our country director) was visiting his community to find vulnerable girls who were eligible for education scholarships. He immediately thought of Kadiatu.

On the day of the scholarship interviews, Mr. Kargbo asked Kadiatu to leave her usual post at the market and come with him to meet Ena.

She agreed.

After hearing Kadiatu’s tragic story, Ena offered Kadiatu a full scholarship. She couldn’t believe her luck – finally – an opportunity to go back to school!

But her excitement was shortlived. Despite being offered a full scholarship, Kadiatu’s grandmother refused to let her go. “Kadiatu is here to look after me”, she told Ena. “It is a waste of time to educate the girl.”

Ena and Mr. Kargbo made numerous visits to Kadiatu’s grandmother in an attempt to convince her to allow Kadiatu to go back to school. On the fourth visit, when both Ena and Mr. Kargbo were ready to give up, it finally worked. Kadiatu was given permission to attend school.

It’s been one year since Kadiatu went back to school. She’s ten years old, and a proud student in Level 2. Despite her three year absence from school, she’s one of the smartest girls in her class – we’ve got the report card to prove it.

We asked Kadiatu what she wanted to be when she grows up.

“A school principal.” She said shyly.

And you know what – now that she’s back in school – she can be anything she wants to be.

In 2011, we gave 100 girls like Kadiatu a scholarship to attend school. Because of your support, we changed the lives of 100 girls forever.

And we’re doing it again in 2012. We want to give an additional 50 scholarships to girls like Kadiatu who we consider ‘extremely vulnerable’. Perhaps they’re being forced into a child marriage, perhaps they’re caught up in a life of domestic slavery, or perhaps their parents just can’t afford to send them to school. Education can change all of this.

And that’s why we’re Doing It In A Dress for Kadiatu.

In the month of October, we’re asking YOU to put on a school dress and raise $250 to put a girl like Kadiatu back in school. It’s easy. Pick your challenge. Set Your Limit. Do It In A Dress and send a girl like Kadiatu to school.

Drew from Thailand is doing Muay Thai Kickboxing in a school dress. Cheryl from Melbourne is attending Melbourne Spring Fashion Week in a school dress. Justine is swimming with the sharks in a school dress. Dave is running 21km in a school dress. Dianne from Saudi Arabia is holding a school dress party. Alex will be treating his patients in a school dress. Bryony is speaking at a conference in a school dress. Hell, we’re even trying to Get Hughesy In A Dress.

And we want you to join us. Do It In A Dress for girls like Kadiatu!

It costs us just $250 to send a girl to school for a whole year. That’s right ONE WHOLE year. $250. That’s IT!

For those who’ve signed up or donated already, as massive THANK YOU to you. And for all the rest of you, we ask you – are you ready to DO IT IN A DRESS?

Register yourself, your business, your team or your pets at www.doitinadress.com

Meet Meike, our German Wonderwoman

admin — Tue, 24 May 2011 08:05:02 +0000

Meike and her half-marathon team
Earlier in the year, we were contacted by Meike Roddewig, a powerful young woman who was planning on running the half marathon in Germany. Meike heard about our cause and she decided she wanted to get involved. Her goal? To raise $3,600 to put 30 girls in Sierra Leone through school. In just six short weeks Meike had recruited a group of her friends to run the half-marathon and she smashed her fundraising goal by raising almost $4,000!

We recently interviewed Meike to learn more about her superpowers..

There are heaps of causes out there in the world – you could have chosen plenty of other causes to raise money for.. so for you, why girls?

I work for a big publishing house for school books and our slogan is “Welcome to the world of learning”. Fact is, lots of girls out there are not welcomed to a world of education where they can learn and grow and develop skills to live a self-determined life and are free to create an exciting future. Plus a country of educated people is usually a prosperous country. Educate a girl and she´ll change the world – what a concept, you got me there!

Your first fundraising campaign was insanely successful – you raised over $3600 in less than two months. How did you do it so quickly?

I was so enthusiastic about the campaign that I told everyone about OneGirl and got others excited, too. I told my colleagues every day at lunch about the progress of the campaign and people just started to give very generously. Plus some of my best friends got involved and did the same so we spread the news together and we raised the money in less than 6 weeks. I think that was the key!

What was your favourite moment during your fundraising and training campaign?

I woke up one morning, checked our fundraising page, and over night people I’d never even met before had donated hundreds of dollars! I was SO excited!

Oh, and the moment we crossed the finish line and it suddenly hit me that I had just run my first half marathon. I was so exhausted, but very happy. We had been training in ice and snow (sometimes with snow up to our ankles) all throughout cold German winter, but the day of the half marathon was the first day of summer: We were greeted with bright sunshine and 25,000 runners on the road – a fantastic day!

Did you learn anything from your first fundraising campaign that you do differently next time?

I learned that people that you think will give without a doubt, don´t necessarily give anything and people that you barely know and didn´t even have on your radar, go above and beyond. You can’t talk people into giving or believing in a cause. Some won´t even listen. You can share what it’s all about and then it’s up to them. I don’t worry about it too much anymore. The people who want to give, give and the money just comes together when you keep on sharing the story.

So after making such a huge difference in the lives of women and girls in Sierra Leone, what’s next for you?

Hmmm.. I’d LOVE to go to Sierra Leone with you next year to meet the girls personally. That is really something I would love to do!

A HUGE thank you to Meike and her committed group of friends. You’ve made a massive different in the lives of girls in Sierra Leone, and we hope you get to the meet them too!

**************

And speaking of Half Marathons – the Melbourne Marathon is coming around again in October and we’re entering another fantastic One Girl team! We got some exciting additions this year, which we will share with you soon, stay tuned..

Pad is not a dirty word.

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:20:44 +0000

Women purchase their trial LaunchPad sanitary pads
We’ve discovered the key to the hearts of women and girls in Sierra Leone. Its sanitary pads. Back in our blog ‘the Women have spoken, they want pads’ we described the yucky bits of poor menstrual health and why we think it is so important for the women and girls of Sierra Leone to have access to hygienic, low-cost, ecofriendly sanitary pads. We were very excited to find during our trial of 147 rural girls and women, that they agree and from the incredibly positive response we’ve received, we know we’re on the right track.

Throughout March, our amazing One Girl Sierra Leone Coordinator Ena travelled back to the 5 remote communities to collect feedback from the 147 women and girls who bought a packet of pads from us in January. Some of the feedback included:

All women said they liked the softness and comfort of the pads, and that they allow them more privacy and dignity. The itching, bruising and skin problems associated with using pieces of cloth were gone. Not a single woman said that there was anything they didn’t like about using pads!

Only 5 women said that they could not afford the price of a pack of 8 pads per month, however they could afford to buy smaller packs of pads at a lower cost.

Women were happy that their menstrual blood was being disposed of properly, as there are traditional beliefs in this region that enemies can use the menstrual blood in rituals to harm the owner.

The women love the social business aspect of LaunchPad, they made it very clear to us that they are businesswomen and want to do this to help themselves and their communities.

All of the school girls in the trial said that they felt comfortable wearing a pad to school!! One Girl’s mission is to keep girls in school, and we were glad to confirm that LaunchPad is one of the keys.

Our challenge now? We need to keep the communities engaged. Ena has reported that the women are frustrated that we’re not coming back with pads for next month. In one village, Ena arrived to hold the feedback session and was overwhelmed with people waving money at her – they’d been saving all month to buy their next pack of pads. The women wanted to more pads, now.

It’s hard to have to say no – however if we want to get this off the ground and make it successful and sustainable, we will have to continue to say no for a little while longer – we need time to source biodegradable pads while we continue our research on manufacturing options. We need time to suss out shipping lines, and navigate the bureaucratic maze that is African importing. Most of all we need time to secure some $$$ to get this off the ground! We have a few interested parties, but it’s up to us to get them some solid information so they know we’re not going to take their money and retire on a heavenly beach on the West Coast of Africa.

While we work on the logistics, we may be providing further sensitization and education sessions in the communities and training our LaunchPad ‘Champions’ in each village, to keep the pad wolves at bay. Meanwhile we’ll be continuing to work our butts off to manufacture and sell pads ASAP!

The women of Sierra Leone have definitely spoken and we’re listening – pads are going to be a powerful tool for change in these communities. If you’d like to read the LaunchPad Report (as we received it), you can view it on our internal documents page.

Over $13,000 Raised at the One Girl Official Launch!

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 03:12:42 +0000

News Flash! Is it true? Yes it’s true! We raised over $13,000 at our Official Launch Party on April 2nd.

We’d like to take this opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who attended, volunteered, donated and won a silent auction prize.

We couldn’t have done it without you.

No really, we couldn’t.

Because of you, we now have $13,000 to put towards our Girls Education Program in Sierra Leone this year.

In July, our team in Sierra Leone will be purchasing 100 school uniforms, dresses, hats, socks, shoes and backpacks. Plus hundreds of exercises books, text books, pens, pencils and stationary. Our Scholarship Girls will have their school fees paid in full, so they are guaranteed a place at school for the next year.

None of this would have been possible without your support. So thank you.

One Hundred Girls. One Hundred Lives. One Hundred Stories. And communities transformed.

Our Country Director, Ena Harmon sent everyone a video message on the evening too. Did you miss it? Well don’t worry! You can watch it now!

You can also view pictures from the evening here – they are all available for download on Flickr too! As you can see, it was an amazing evening.

And if you didn’t make it down for the evening, don’t worry – there will be more fabulous parties to come.