“The most powerful method in empowering girls is to start with their personal journeys and personal empowerment,” Monica Nyiraguhabwa, executive director and co-founder of the Girl Up Initiative Uganda, told TriplePundit. “You cannot empower a girl unless she's in touch with herself.”

The initiative — which focuses on improving educational, financial and health outcomes for young women — creates spaces where girls can dig into who they are outside of gender stereotypes and societal expectations and see their own worth. In that way, they develop the confidence to speak up, become leaders and take control over their own futures.

A deeply patriarchal environment is what inspired the initiative’s conception. Girls’ education isn’t prioritized in Uganda, Nyiraguhabwa said. Socially, girls are taught to be humble and look down when speaking. Many community members see girls who speak up as arrogant, she said. Nyiraguhabwa wanted to give girls the power to be who they are, instead of who the community tells them to be.

“For me, it was about challenging the narrative around having a girl child, because having a girl child in my community … it wasn't a blessing,” Nyiraguhabwa said, regarding barriers to girls' personal empowerment in Uganda. “But when you have a boy, it calls for celebration.”

The Girl Up Initiative runs a number of programs for Ugandan youth in different life stages and situations. Its flagship Adolescent Girls Program hosts in-school clubs for girls ages 9 to 15. Girls participate in a variety of activities through the clubs, including climate-smart projects that benefit their nutrition and hygiene, such as learning how to sew reusable menstrual pads and grow food in the school's garden, Nyiraguhabwa said.

“It’s not an academic class. It's a fun way of learning through play, and yet, you're actually contributing to addressing issues of degradation,” she said. “For example, the girls are involved in issues of nutrition, but they are addressing those issues in a playful, fun manner that allows them to show up as their full selves [rather] than showing up as learners in a classroom.”

Read the full article about the Girl Up Initiative Uganda by Riya Anne Polcastro at TriplePundit.