Listen to Girls: Participants view from an international girls summit

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Listen to Girls Participants view from an
international girls summit

• Yongling Zhang
• University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• Gender Symposium
• 51st Annual Conference CIES
• Baltimore, MD
• Feb. 26th 2007

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Presentation Outline

• Introduction the International Girls Summit
• Process documenting the summit
• Analysis a three-fold model of understanding
  equality of education
• Equal access to education
• Equality within education
• Equality through education
• Reflection Listening to the
• unheard voice

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2006 International Girls Summit

• Girls International Forum, St.Paul, MN
• An organization empowering girls
• July 2006 International Girls Summit
• Meet the teams
• My role at the summit
• Volunteer
• Documentary team member

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Documenting the Summit

• Preparation
• Background research of participating team
• Interview protocols
• Women mentors
• Girls Delegates
• Documenting
• Parallel process
• Analysis
• Girl delegates summit experiences
• Tripods of educational equality
• On-going work

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Summit Teams Overview
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Summit Experience (I)

• Cross-cultural perception
• On the presentation of cultural box yesterday, I
  was surprised,I just learned that there are so
  many people with different practices and
  different culturesit was shocking
• A Kenyan girl delegate
• Tolerance and cooperation
• Through interaction with people, you learn
  tolerance and acceptance and through that you can
  work together.gain knowledge and experiences and
  we can move forward together
• A South African girl delegate
• Publicity awareness
• We need have a voice, and we are able to make an
  impact on the media by writing letters to the
  editor, and getting our points crossed and
  directing it to certain news and magazines
• A South African girl delegates

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Summit Experience (II)

• Leadership
• I want to let them the girls know that they
  are all leaders in their own wayso they have to
  maintain their dignity and they have to be role
  models
• A Kenyan girl delegate
• Organization skills
• We learned how to refine our action plans we
  have made our objectives and goals very smart, we
  have learned to make specific action planks, the
  timeliness and the shared responsibilities among
  ourselves
• An Indian girl delegate
• Empowerment
• I have learned from the South African girl who
  said she want to be the first woman president in
  her country. She said she wanted to help girls
  and me too, I want to help girls to learn
  handwork, because I dont want them to go to the
  market and sell themselves
• A Nigerian girl delegate

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The tripods of educational equality

• Equal access to education
• Enrollment and retention
• Transition to secondary (and tertiary)
• Equality within education
• Learning outcome
• Health of students
• Childrens involvement in family work
• Social discrimination
• Equality through education
• Employment at different levels
• Social and political participation
• Reference Subrahmanian (2005)

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Equal Access to Education

• Enrollment,Drop-out, and Retention
• An extreme case of drop-outs in Kenya
• Community education center in India
• Educating illiterate mothers in Nigeria

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Equality within Education (I)

• Health of girls students in education
• Menstruation
• Gender-based violence
• HIV/AIDS
• Actions addressing health issues
• Making and distributing sanitary towels
• Documenting teenage rape victims
• Microfinance project
• Health education in schools

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Equality within Education (II)

• Social Discrimination against girls and women
• Polygamy and inheritance in Nigeria
• Girls not taught to be brave?
• Dilemma of highly educated women
• Lack of awareness at higher level administration
• Actions addressing social discrimination
• Advocacy and campaign
• Leadership training for girls

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Equality through Education (I)

• Women mentors perception
• When I look back, I was very conservative and
  didnt have the confidence to come out and speak
  when I met them the Nisan girls, I was amazed.
  First they look at things differently, they dare
  a lot more not afraid to say what they think,
  even if they can get in trouble
• Abeer, Israeli woman mentor
• In my times, my the challenges were that I had
  to battle with waking up at 4oclock, cooking,
  making breakfast for my parents before I go to
  school but now it is much better because there
  is more awareness, parents are more aware that
  education is important
• Rachel, South African woman mentor
• Compare the girls I work with now, to those 10
  years ago, I believe when you impact knowledge
  and skills on somebody, when she grows up, she
  will never forget she will be able to bring up
  her own children in a better waythats what I
  feel, a progressive sense
• Deborah, Nigerian woman mentor

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Equality through education (II)

• The story of two girl delegates
• Fiona, 16 years old, Kenya
• Single parent background
• A dropped-out sister who went back to school
• Personal goal my mother is my main source of
  inspiration, just as she works hard at home, I
  want to be an achieverI want to go to university
  and study medicineId like to advocate for
  girls, especially girls affected by the African
  negative practices traditions
• Isabelle, 20 years old, South Africa
• Medical student, who plans to volunteer after
  graduation
• Have her own NGO for children in hospital
• Personal goal We are trying to make a
  difference in these kids lives, the little
  differences that will make a big difference at
  the end of day.
• Note these are pseudo names.

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Reflection The unheard voice

• Representativeness
• Language barriers
• Truth or better publicity?

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Future Work

• Follow up on the planks
• Documentary production
• Annual Global Girls Day
• (ask me for more details after the
  presentation)
• 2009 Intl Girls Summit
• THANK YOU!
• Yongling Zhang
• zhang429_at_umn.edu