In light of International Women’s Day (March 8th), the Girls for Girls service group has been busy organising a Women’s Week. The week has been structured to have a new activity each day, from a bake sale to protest walk, in order to both raise awareness on gender inequality and support our service. As co-leader of the service, I have used the recent service sessions to collaborate with my peers and solidify a plan for the week.
Poster made by service members to communicate the events of Women’s Week with the school (put in the daily bulletin)
Being co-leader of the service, I spoke at the primary school assembly to inform students of a poster competition. This collaborative experience proved invaluable in teaching me public speaking and assertiveness. Integrating the primary school to teach them the importance of women’s day and encourage school spirit was additionally valuable as we were able to get a larger range of engagement from the school, educating younger members of the school on key social issues.
Primary assembly in which Girls for Girls leaders (myself and Sheruni) spoke of our themes and the competition of the week
On Monday, our service hosted the first day of Women’s Week which featured a positivity wall! The wall featured hand-drawn posters, allowing me to integrate my art skills in this service. The posters were scattered around school campus with pens attached to allow student to leave positive messages surrounding women empowerment. The positivity wall was overall a massive success and has continued to be of use even after Women’s Week!
Students using the positivity wall during Women’s Week
Following this, Thursday involved a bake sale which, while being chaotic, was an extremely popular feature of Women’s Day, accumulating over 20 thousand rupees of funds! Selling cookies enhanced my leadership skills and taught me the benefits of communication when collaborating. The fast-paced selling atmosphere was slightly hectic, however with an extreme amount of mental maths, and getting help from other service members, there were no issues faced during this process.
Sign made by myself: Set up of the bake sale, featuring Women’s Week themed, decorated cookies
The events of Friday featured a self-defence class, featuring a trainer from outside of school. The trainer was introduced by a member of the service group, showing how valuable collaboration skills can be in creating unique activities, which incorporate everyones ideas and abilities.
The self-defence class held at school in honour of Women’s Week
Student’s learning valuable skills in self-defence!
Despite the light-heartedness of some Women’s Week events, the service also agreed that touching light on this issue was important to provide the opportunity for students to be aware and capable to defend themselves as needed. Unfortunately domestic abuse and violence is a persistent issue in society, affecting both men and women. Providing this class was the service groups way of giving an opportunity for anyone in school (male or female) to be aware of such issues and to use skills learnt when needed. The class overall was a good success, and will definitely be integrated into more events for students in future.
Though the planning of this week was complicated and overwhelming at times, the collaborative nature of service allowed it to be accomplished smoothly. Considering the extreme success of Women’s Week, introduced for the first time at school this year, the service has decided to carry out this event for years to come. Not only was this experience valuable to enhancing my leadership and decision making skills, it also provided a way to collaborate and communicate with a range of people at school; for example in integrating the primary students in the Women’s Week poster competition which experienced extreme engagement. This week was also an opportunity to accumulate funds for the Emerge Lanka organisation, contributing to keeping it running for years to come, truly helping in aiding female victims of sexual abuse in Sri Lanka with safety.