Background
Save a Girl Initiative is a project that aims to support and empower girls and Women and is supported by Youth for Charity Missions International (YOFOCHM). The directors of the ministry were inspired to initiate the SAGI project to respond to the needs of young girls and single mothers in our society: the sexually abused, orphans, isolated/needy girls and single mothers who have lost or been abandoned by their husbands. The project provides them with access to: education, by covering the cost of room and board for school, and Hygiene supplies including reusable sanitary pads. A portion of the proceeds provide financial support for single mothers to start a business.
Several girls and young women in our community are exposed to sexual exploitation and violence. One of the more vulnerable stages in a girl’s life is during their menstrual period. To obtain sanitary pads, several young women will engage in high-risk activities.
Motto: save a girl, save a future.
Aim: To prepare and empower a female child for a bright future.
Vision: To raise an independent, self-sustaining, female generation, that will fully participate in the social, economic, and spiritual development of their communities.
Our Mission: To create opportunities that will empower women and secure for them a productive place in a developing society.
Programs / Activities:
1.Girl sponsorship scheme
The Sponsorship portion of our program provides financial support for at-risk girls in our community. This includes: sponsoring an entire year in school (in our local system, Academia is not free, and sometimes boarding is required making the cost prohibitive for some families).
The initiative is currently taking care of 22 needy and orphaned girls with welfare, accommodation, and educational support. Approximately 30 dollars every month supports one girl by helping with: costs of tuition, books, school uniforms, stationary supplies, transport, clothes, shelter and food at home. With help from friends, well-wishers and our members, these girls have been able to attend a quality school or university.
Sponsoring an orphaned girl not only fulfills the Biblical mandate to care for orphans in distress, but also opens opportunities to send the Gospel message of Love (Christ) to families and children in our community who need it most. We are ever encouraging and inviting individuals, families, church/community organization to help us care for the Fatherless.
The children we support are the innocent victims of poverty or are orphans. Our sponsorship program allows YOU to be a significant influence in the life of a female child. 90 dollars cover one kid through one term, hence 270 dollars for one kid covers the three terms in a year.
2.Girl hygiene programs (Activities: providing sanitary pads, Support for HIV /Aids victims)
Our campaign called “keep needy girls in school”, with donations and much of our own efforts, has provided to over 500 school-age girls re-usable pads in our community, since 2015.
Girls with limited resources in our community live in poverty and lack the financial means to buy sanitary pads during their menstruation period. Several are orphans who live on just $1 a day, for them, sanitary pads are a luxury and food a priority. This can leave many of them with limited options and they end up using banana leaves, newspapers, or mattress filling. This, in turn, causes them to miss school to avoid shame, isolation, and embarrassment.
Our campaign “keep needy girls in school,” thus, is an initiative determined to respond to this situation. Through our activities, we are serving as a resource to benefit needy girls & keep them in school by providing them with re-usable sanitary kits that help them concentrate in class during their menstruation period, on top of providing them with the basic needs and school supplies. One re-usable pack, given to one girl, has four separate pads, lasts for a full year, and only costs four dollars.
As a result, we have been able to reduce the number of school-girl dropouts creating more educated girls who will participate equally in the development of our country. We have also been able to slow the increasing rates of unwanted pregnancy in young girls in our communities who have sex in order to obtain money to buy sanitary pads.
NOTE: The organization in future will embark on training young women and girls on how to sew their own sanitary pads which will reduce the costs of buying the kits annually.
3.Girl mentorship programs (Activities: school and community outreach).
The project also mentors’ girls and fosters their personal development. We provide structured, monthly leadership activities in schools, and communities conducted by trained local facilitators. Our mentorship program develops girls’ decision-making skills, self-awareness, communications skills and critical thinking.
Teachers put forth tireless and patriotic efforts in molding this Nation, but they can’t do it alone. Changing a generation is the work of all citizens. Because we recognize schools add positively to lives of young people, we partner with the schools by providing young girls with basic knowledge, career help, emotional support, spiritual guidance and other tangible supports.
Since 2009, our message of hope to young girls in schools has had tremendous and notable impacts on their lives. Testimonies have been given by many young girls, of achieving their career goals and living better and more purposeful lives out in the world.
Our project (SAGI), led by Christian Young Ladies of Purpose, have realized that: causes of school outbreaks; un wanted pregnancies; and failed relationships among young girls, often result from: bad company, lack of proper guidance, bad mentors and counsellors, and hopelessness, hence creating a need for our team to address these issues.
After realizing the positive and tremendous impacts SAGI has had on our girls to alleviate adverse psychological damage from torture, hate, and suicide, It has been our prayer that interested individuals may physically, financially & prayerfully intervene to continue the psychological healing for our girls and we are calling upon schools to give us the opportunity to visit and talk to their girls at their schools.
4.Moral & financial support for single mothers & widows
To date, 6 (six) single mothers are successful business women, financially supported by this project, and they have been able to support their families without the help of men, who some abandoned them and others died.
Save A Girl Initiative is a girl child empowerment project supported by Youth for charity missions international (YOFOCHM) to prepare and empower girls for a bright future.
Kindly help us educate and feed a girl with $30 every month. Your donation contributes to the costs of tuition, books, school uniforms, stationary supplies, transport, shelter and food at our center.