Empowerment

About a month ago Christi and I wrapped up our empowerment workshops at Madzimoyo Secondary School. The Girls Empowerment Workshop was held from October 10th – 13th and the Boys Empowerment Workshop was held from October 17th – 20th. It was a great experience getting to work with the girls and boys from the school. They are so talented and have many goals they want to achieve. We had guest speakers come in to inspire them and we had sessions on gender, assertiveness, leadership, communication, goals, role models, violence and aggression, sex implications, HIV/AIDs, condom demos, rape and sexual abuse and much more. We hit a lot of topics in a short time, but the kids did great and had a great time. They really loved some of our ice breakers and energizers. It was really fulfilling working with these boys and girls. Christi and I did not have any outside funding to we had to spend our own money which was completely worth it but a bit expensive on my very tight budget. At the end of the boys sessions we had them complete an evaluation of the workshop and one boy stated, “I want to thank you very much for this workshop, it has changed me.” Well that’s all that matters. I personally also learned a great deal in these workshops and I’ve formed relationships with these kids that are truly amazing. About two weeks after the workshop I received a "bush note" at my hut. It was from Patricia, one of the girls that attended the workshop. She thanked us for

putting on the workshop and said that it changed her and now she sees the importance of making goals and striving to accomplish them in her future. The thing is...I want to thank these students. They were very open-minded about all the topics we covered. They are the ones who are going to make a difference, we just wanted to help point them in the right direction.