Ou bien?

Once again, I’m at a roadblock to try to explain this country and my life to those of you without a mental picture…

I’ll start by saying that I’m super happy. The people here are awesome and super nice as are the other volunteers who I get to see every so often.

I’m about to undertake a project called “Vacation Enterprise” to help girls make money during their summer vacation.  I chose to share this because the problem pretty much describes the Girls’ Education and Empowerment program.

PROBLEM: Lack of gender-equity

SUB-PROBLEM: Girls’ don’t get to go to school because of the lack of money (boys are given preference)

ATTEMPT AT SOLUTION #1:  Girls try to start up small businesses and either 1) lose money or 2) work so hard they have no time to study which leads to à drop-out

ATTEMPT AT SOLUTION #2: Find a man to help pay which leads to à pregnancy which leads to drop-out

MY SOLUTION TO BE ATTEMPTED: I will loan 5 girls a nice chunk of change to start businesses over the summer. I’ll teach a money-management class once a week and collect all their profits so at the end we can pay it directly to the school.

Ça va aller. Ou bien? (It will go, or?)

I’ll let you know how it goes.  In the meantime, check out my friend Brandon Jones’s photo albums.  He’s a great photographer and he just opened his Togo albums up for “friends of friends”

Also, here’s a blog post of another PCV that I enjoy: http://alishawilliams.com/uncategorized/2011/03/14/reflections/    

Her whole blog www.alishawilliams.com is actually great.

Lastly, I'm about to try to upload some videos to Facebook :)  

Enjoy!