This is our first social media fundraising attempt for our Young Women’s Development Groups Project, born out of frustration with what should be an easily resolved situation: these three girls (in the photo) are from the mountain village of Dochu-Borzoi in Chechnya, where two weeks ago our colleagues started running an intensive, rights-based girls’ empowerment program. The girls loved it and were just thrilled, because there is nothing like it in their lives. But now we might be forced to close the program in this village and one other because we cannot afford the additional $160 a month needed to feed the girls some simple, essential snacks.
The social workers, materials and transport are covered, but in a village like this, where girls’ homes are a long trek from the school and where they are expected to do endless chores at home after school, we have to hold the program right after classes, because once the girls go home, their families won’t allow them come back for our program. So after a morning of classes, they are hungry and tired, and we need to feed them! For £2.50 ($4), we can feed one of the 40 girls in the two villages for a month. Funds from our donors cover all the costs of the program except this one. So here is our goal: can we raise £100 ($160) quickly, to cover the first month and keep the program going in Dochu-Borzoi?
If you want to make a donation to help achieve this goal, please go to our Peacebuilding UK donation site.
Every single penny/cent raised for this will be spent on the girls.
Enter “girls’ program” under message. Should we raise more than needed for these two villages, it will be used for snacks for other remote or poor program locations (we have a total of 22 groups with over 300 girls!).
This project means the world to us and indeed all the organizations and social workers involved, but not nearly as much as it does to the girls who take part in the groups, who regularly say that these are the happiest days of their lives, that they are now determined to succeed, to go back to school, to reach out for help when they need it, to strive to make their own choices, and a positive difference to their communities. And for some, just to have the light, love, respect and “time out” that these groups offer them, away from very difficult, and in some cases violent and troubled lives, means everything.