GLOW Summer School(s)
Peace Corps volunteers at the bonfire; my class on leadership; tie-dye! (an American staple)
This summer I spent a significant amount of my time working as a co-director for GLOW Summer Schools. (GLOW = Girls Leading Our World) GLOW Summer Schools are, if you can imagine, traditional American summer camps on crack - as in everything you imagine at a camp plus lectures, leadership development, health seminars, guest speakers, and lots and lots of s'mores. They are designed for girls ages 14 - 17, to teach them to make informed decisions for their own lives. If you remember, I worked on this project last year as well. My involvement in GLOW is what Peace Corps calls a "secondary project," as in it's not my main job in my community --we worked with Non-Profits and girls from all over Moldova. Next year other Peace Corps Volunteers will pick up the work where we left off - and continue it.
This year we completely re-designed the program. Instead of one national camp, which was costly and depended on foreign aid grants, we designed two local camps - and got donations of camp spaces, transportation, food, etc. We also worked directly with local non-profits instead of a national organization, and this allowed us to reach more of our target group (poorer girls from villages, girls at risk of trafficking). It was a transition year - but this year was GLOW's 10th birthday in Moldova - and it was a good time to change it, to make it more sustainable.
My favorite part of the camp this year was our Counselor-in-Training program where we invited the best girls from last year to apply to be jr counselors. These girls were so amazing, so energetic, and so dedicated to GLOW that it was a pleasure to work with them. Some of them were only 16 years old, but were very responsible. Sometimes, in Peace Corps especially, I feel we get stuck on the "sustainability" of a project in terms of money - but this jr counselor program focuses on sustainability of people -- when Peace Corps pulls out of Moldova (eventually) there will be trained Moldovan women who went to GLOW, loved GLOW, learned something at GLOW, and can now lead it.
Plus - talking to the girls about their experiences at GLOW is always so heartwarming it borders on cheesy. True, though. As you can tell from the pictures, it was a lot, a lot of fun, as well as very very exhausting. (I know it's the end of September already, but I couldn't not write about this camp -- it was too big a part of my life in Moldova to leave it out).
And a big shoutout to Danna Klein, provider of tie-dye!!!!!!!!!! Thank you!
Myself and our incorrectly colored Olympic rings; the girls in a contest to eat cookies off of a string (no hands!)
Two different classes at GLOW; the classes are in Romanian and Russian.
Peace Corps Volunteers working on GLOW; a class
"Rock, Paper, Scissors" in the "Bear, Hunter, Ninja" version; the medal ceremonies at our GLOW-impic Games.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 4:48 PM.
