SEED Women's Empowerment Program (WEP)
At SEED, we recognize that while Senegal is a tolerant and inclusive society, the gender norms often favor males. We see this across several different aspects of society as girls are more likely to drop out of school (UNESCO), have lower literacy rates (UNICEF), and face a multitude of challenges that can deter their academic path, including forced or early marriage, pregnancy, and even disease.
Since the start of our girls programming in 2013, and the launch of SEED Academy Girls in 2014, we've made a concentrated effort to enhance our female specific services each year, and to close the gender gap in Senegal. With this in mind, we launched the SEED Women's Empowerment Program (WEP) to provide our girls with a supportive and open environment to develop their personal voice, and feel safe to express themselves freely.
For the month of August, we partnered with HOPE for Senegal, an education and youth advocacy non-profit, to host a summer camp for our SEED Academy Girls. The camp was segmented into four weeks, with weekly topics that facilitated team-building workshops and seminars. The themes included: Leadership Training, Violence Against Women (awareness), Women Sexual Health, Self-Acceptance (skill training).
With overwhelmingly positive feedback from students and parents, we look to further roll-out our Women's Empowerment Program during our 2016-17 school year.
