GLOW

 The biggest project I've worked on this past year went off last week without a hitch!  For four days we held a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camp in my village.   This is a great project geared towards young girls, with the hope that hey can overcome some of the gender obstacles they face (most women do all the housework, cleaning, cooking, and husbands rarely help) and that there are more opportunities for them if they want more than just to stay at home and raise a family.  Moreover, an intrinsic part of the project is the idea that they bring what they learn back to their communities and other girls.

GLOW was a long work in progress though.  It is actually a world wide camp run by Peace Corps Volunteers, and it was quite active back in Georgia.  But after the 2008 war, Heather and Lauren from the G9 group (the group of volunteers before me ) had no information on how it was run before, funding, contacts, places, etc.  So with help from Armenian volunteers they started from scratch.  Samantha and I came on board in November, and we had a great plan in the works for a huge camp to be held in the mountains this summer.  But with budget crises our funding didn't come through as planned.  which meant lots of scrambling and scaling down.  But what we ended up with was GREAT.  We had four days of sessions and held it in my village of Apeni.  There were 30 girls total with 10 of my students hosting 2 girls each from other villages in the Kakheti region at their homes, coming to school from basically 9am to 10pm.  We organized lunches, guest speakers, and best of all, we had some great Georgian ladies who studied in America come help us run the sessions as co-counselors, and Melissa to help us out as a Peace Corps counselor.  Every morning we started with an hour of exercises (circuit training, yoga, or running - things they could do easily at home) and then covered topics such as HIV/AIDS, self-esteem, character traits, gender roles, future goals, nutrition, hygiene, teamwork, volunteerism, and leadership. The girls were broken up into smaller groups for some sessions to help foster discussion.

Best of all, the hard work over the past two years was worth it. I don't even know that I could describe how great it was to watch these girls over the course of 4 days.   I was originally going to post a run down of activities and funny stories, but I feel like it almost takes away from what really happened there.  I was astounded at how open and honest these girls were, and moved at how they treated each other with care and respect.   Even when they were tired and drained from long, hot days, they were enthusiastic about every topic and everything we did. 

And just one week after it ended, we are already in the works to make it bigger and better for next year and more to come!

Here's more pictures:  GLOW pictures