Tag Archives: Empowering girls

Girls speak up through Rotary/Toastmaster alliance

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Mary Shackleton

By Mary Shackleton, Empowering Girls Initiative Ambassador for Zone 32 (Bermuda; Northeastern USA) and Nikita Williams, Empowering Girls Initiative team member for Zone 28 (Canada; Michigan, Washington, and Alaska, USA)

Teenage girls all over the world struggle with self-confidence. Recently, a team of Rotary members and Toastmasters in our Rotary zones set out to help girls build their leadership skills. Both Rotary and Toastmasters International are committed to helping girls embrace their full potential.

We decided to use Toastmasters’ time-tested Youth Leadership Program (YLP) to benefit younger members of the Rotary community. Our effort, which we call the Empowering Girls YLP program, gives girls a space to discover and amplify their voices and ideas over eight weeks. The program’s unique, workshop-style design lets the girls develop speaking and leadership skills in a safe space. They learn about topics like Public Speaking; Using Body Language & Gestures; Active Listening; Giving Feedback; and Impromptu Speaking.

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Creating positive change: Rotary’s Empowering Girls initiative

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Pace Universal
Pace Universal is a school for girls in Piyali Junction, outside of Kolkata, India, funded in part by Rotary clubs and The Rotary Foundation. Rotary’s Empowering Girls initiative encourages projects like this one to empower girls to be able to make choices and create positive change.
Elizabeth Usovicz

By Elizabeth Usovicz, Rotary International Director, chair of Rotary’s Empowering Girls Task Force

What does it mean to be empowered? For girls throughout the world, empowerment is the ability to make choices and create positive change in their own lives, as well as in their families and communities.

Empowered girls become empowered women. Reaching out to the girls of our world is the heart and purpose of Rotary’s Empowering Girls Initiative. Our stories of supporting girls are interwoven with their stories of empowerment, like the story of Atupele, a girl in Malawi.

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Rotary e-club empowers girls in Kenya

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Young women receive training in self defense during a project to empower girls in Kenya.
Young women receive training in self defense during a project to empower girls in Kenya.

By Roberta Porter, Rotary E-Club of District 5450

I was shocked and stunned as I sat in silence listening to the pain in my daughter’s voice. She was calling me from Kenya where she had travelled as a volunteer with an Australian volunteer organization.

She described witnessing first-hand the impact poverty was having on the health and wellbeing of families and especially the children she was working with. The main focus for her at that time was lack of education about puberty, sexual health, and sexual violence.

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Supporting education for girls in Bangladesh

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By Abdullah Al Fahad, immediate past president, Rotaract Club of Dhaka Orchid, Bangladesh

Esara is a seven-year-old girl who lives in the Habiganj district of Bangladesh with her mother. She lost her father three years ago when he was killed in a traffic accident. They live on the income of her mother, who barely makes enough to put food on the table.

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On International Day of the Girl Child; start your Empowering Girls project

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By Elizabeth Usovicz, Rotary International director for Zones 30&31, USA

Elizabeth Usovicz

October 11 is International Day of the Girl Child. Along with the United Nations, today is a day for Rotary members to support and celebrate the girls of our world by participating in Rotary International’s Empowering Girls initiative.

As the leader of a Vocational Training Team for a Rotary Foundation grant project, my team and I worked alongside teachers in Malawi to develop and deliver an after-school program in village primary schools. The program empowers children, especially girls, to stay in school.

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