By Jenna Lacey & Kaoutar Arhenbou | Development Coordinator, Program Coordinator
Dear Friends,
We know that you believe in the mission of Project Soar: to empower teen girls to be the leaders of today and tomorrow, but how do we do that? Some say it takes a village – we say, it takes a squad.
Your gifts in this campaign allow us to pay local women facilitators to create “girl squads” or safe spaces to run 25 weekly empowerment workshops in their communities for new teen girls every school year. Girls Not Brides reports that having a “safe regular meeting place allows girls to meet with peers and share experiences which can reduce their sense of isolation and vulnerability.” Thanks to your support, this is happening across Morocco every week – here is one Soar Story:
15-year-old Soar Girl Yasmine was having trouble integrating in school with her peers and teachers. Before she joined Project Soar in November 2021 in Ouarzazate, a city in southern Morocco known as the gateway to the Sahara desert, her facilitators Oumaima and Kaltouma reported that Yasmine was getting low grades and was close to dropping out of school. After attending 7 Soar empowerment workshops, Yasmine started to believe that she should stay in school, but her facilitators knew that she would need followup and ongoing support.
In January, during Module 4 (Rights): Workshop 2: I have the right to pursue an education, facilitators Oumaima and Kaltouma added an additional activity to the workshop that day. They asked the Soar Girls in their squad to write positive and encouraging letters to Yasmine.
Since January, Oumaima and Kaltouma continue to observe how Yasmine values her education so much more, and how she is persevering through the challenging time of adolescence. She is insistent on staying in school and pursuing her education. We are happy to report that Yasmine is still in school today thanks to her role model facilitators, the girls in her squad, and the safe space that this program creates for girls who need this critical support!
Thanks to your support of the Sponsor Empowerment for a Teen Girl project and others like it, Project Soar is fostering safe spaces and girl squads across Morocco every year.
Stay tuned for more news from Project Soar and never doubt you are making a difference!
Best Wishes,
The Project Soar Team
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