SPEAK UP

Just Like Her Mother - Part 2

Some of my favorite pictures taken in the Bangladeshi villages where we work are of the girls with their Mothers.  Many times you can easily see the family resemblance, and given the poverty and lack of education and opportunities in these villages you can easily see these young girls end up just like their Moms: uneducated, forced into a child marriage, stuck in poverty.

MOINA AND HER MOTHER IN TIPNA

As I've mentioned before, some of these Mothers are impressive in their own right, survivors of very difficult circumstances in a male dominated world.  I have tremendous respect for them, especially for their ability to raise happy and well-mannered kids in a tough environment.  I deeply respect many of these humble, poor Moms.

Just Like Her Mother?

I've been trying hard to remember as many names as possible of the hundreds of girls we've met in the Bangladeshi villages who are interested in joining our Girls Education Program.  It didn't take long when there were only 21 in the GEP, but with 77 now enrolled and hundreds more interested, I'm losing track.

An added challenge is when the girls test whether I can remember who their mother is.  They enjoy my confusion when 10 moms and 10 girls all gather together and I am totally confused about who belongs to whom.  I'm getting better at it, but have a long ways to go in our recognition game. 

KASHIPUR - CHANTY AND HER MOTHER

A more serious, sobering part of the game is when I can see a young girl's eyes in her mother and can see how life and poverty has beaten her down. Women in these villages have never finished their education, have lived in deep poverty all their lives, and many have been victims of the silent epidemic of spousal abuse, mistreatment and discrimination merely because they are poor women. When a young woman looks just like her mother, it's easy to imagine her in 20 years if nothing changes - she will be married as a teenager, drop out of school and never get a job or education, and face a life of mundane, grinding poverty.  Just like her mother.

Speak Up's Friends in Tipna

A small village about 30 minutes by motorcycle from Khulna, Tipna is one of the 10 villages where we sponsor girls this year in our Girls Education Program. 5 girls aged 13-17 were in the GEP in our first year, and this year we added 6 more.  These young ladies - all from very poor homes with uneducated mothers - will each be the first woman in their family to finish school.  Stay tuned for news from Tipna - these young ladies are changing their village culture and will help us build a new generation of educated and empowered world-changers.  

THE SPONSORED GIRLS FROM TIPNA AT OUR FIRST 2013 GEP MEETING

I've spent a lot of time the past year visiting the Bangladeshi villages, and Tipna is probably my favorite.  The families there have all been incredibly welcoming - you can't imagine how many places of rice and pita I've had this past year - and a few of the girls speak enough English for us to talk in both English and Bangla.  Very fun!  

2012 GEP Results in Bangladesh - A Perfect 19 for 19

While stats are hard to come by for girls from the villages where we work, the reality is that the vast majority of girls in our part of rural Bangladesh never finish school.  In multiple visits to more than 20 villages I have yet to meet a mother in the villages who has finished her college education or more than one woman in any village with a job.  Our NGO Partner Dhruba has employed several women in their early 20s to be teachers and tutors, yet these women are very, very hard to find in rural Bangladesh. Most girls quit school young, guaranteeing a future of unemployment, poverty and potential abuse.

OUR TEAM OF 21 GIRLS IN THE 2012 GIRLS EDUCATION PROGRAM

So we are thrilled to announce the recent results of our 2012 Girls Education Program.  Out of 21 girls, all 19 who have received their results to date passed their 2012 exams and will be promoted to the next grade.  2 more are in what here is called college - grades 10 through 12 - and will have their final exams later this year. 19 for 19.  Likely 21 for 21 when all the results are in.  WOW!

While getting good report cards may be celebrated in much of the world, it might be kind of mundane to finish one grade and move on the next.  Not so for many of these villages.  It can be hard to understand, but many young girls' families are quite literally waiting for a marriage proposal for their daughter so she can quit school and get married.  They are not expecting their daughters to finish their education, much less try to get a job or do something professionally to help their family or village.  Hundreds of years of female poverty - with low expectations and discrimination against women - mean most girls just don't get an education. To have so many families commit with us to these girls' education, and to support us in our efforts to combat early marriage with all of its problems, is remarkable.  

Consider the obstacles these girls face in finishing school and holding on to a dream of rising out of poverty: no or limited electricty in their villages making studying at night difficult; uneducated parents who cannot help with their homework; a legacy of many generations of uneducated women; social and familial pressure to marry as a young teenager; and grinding poverty in their villages.  It's a tough road.

Which makes our 2012 results are the more fun - a small triumph against the odds, and a great sign for the future. Thanks to all who helped make 2012 a success, and who are committed to helping us in 2013.  We've got 77 girls ages 10-18 enrolled in our GEP for 2013, in 10 different villages, and we're learning what it takes to allow for significant expansion in the future.  

One day we hope to be reporting on hundreds of girls in Bangladesh. For now, let's celebrate 19 for 19!

A Learning Center for Chuknagor

Now that it's the dry season in Bangladesh - the perfect time for construction work - we've been building the first of our Learning Centers in the Dalit villages where we run our Girls Education Program.  Our Learning Centers will serve two main purposes.  First, for our sponsored girls and their friends, the Centers will be places to meet with their tutors to do their homework, study English, and prepare for exams. Very few of these girls have electricity or adequate lighting in their small homes, and many have illiterate parents, making study at home ineffective.  The LCs will fill the gap, becoming small community centers for the girls to come together to stay on track with their education.  Secondly, the LCs will serve as small school-rooms for the entire village.  Some of the villages where we work have no school nearby, or the neighboring government school is too far away for young children to make the long trek to school. Our LCs will therefore serve as schools in many villages with such barriers to education. 

OUR NEW LEARNING CENTER IN TIPNA. A SIMPLE STRUCTURE, THE MOST EXPENSIVE PART IS THE BRICK AND MORTAR FOUNDATION. THE REST IS MADE OF BAMBOO BEAMS, REED SLATS, AND A TIN ROOF.  

In January we built three LCs - in Panjia, Tipna and Chuknagor.  Three more are under construction, and we have the funds in hand to build 2-3 more.  For about $500 each, these simple buildings of brick, bamboo and tin can change the educational climate of a village of 200-400 people, in particular giving girls-at-risk the chance to stay in school and away from the terrible exploitation that so oftern plagues girls in poverty.

Let us know if you would like to fund a new Learning Center for $500 - we have many villages waiting!

Here are a few pictures of the girls and the Learning Center construction in Chuknagor.  

OUR 11 SPONSORED GIRLS IN CHUKNAGOR WITH THEIR TUTOR

Greetings from the Alingon Home

 

The 16 girls at the Alingon Home in Bangladesh, saying thanks to their individual sponsors. 

Growing the GEP in 2013

I spent a few hours this morning with strategizing with Uttam Das about how we would proceed with the Girls Education Program in 2013.  After running the GEP for nearly a year, we've worked out a lot of the issues and are ready to greatly expand the Program for the 2013 school year.  Here's what to expect...

(1) GROWING THE GEP FROM 21 GIRLS TO 75.  The 21 girls we currently support through individual sponsorships are from 8 villages in the Khulna Division of southwest Bangladesh.  In 2013 we will add girls from two new villages - Khornia and Daulatpur - and increase our presence in the prior 8, creating a strong core of sponsored girls in each of the 10 villages.  Today, we have 28 girls sponsored, so we are still looking for 47 new sponsors at $35 per month to start the new year. 

(2) BUILDING 5 LEARNING CENTERS IN EARLY 2013.  Most of the poor villages where we work do not have places for kids to study or do their homework, and some villages have no school nearby, meaning that young kids there never go to school.  To build a commitment to education in rural Bangladesh, particularly to empower girls who would otherwise drop out of school and get married at a young age, we are planning to build Learning Centers in 5 villages in early 2013.  Each LC will be an in-village center for kids to meet with their tutors and study, and eventually will be stocked with books and educational supplies. 

Four of these villages will be where we currently sponsor girls: Tipna, Chuknagor, Magurkhali and Panjia.  We will build a 5th LC in Kaliaroy, a village where we hope to expand the GEP through sponsorship in the future.  Because Kaliaroy has no nearby school, the LC in Kaliaroy will be designed to function as a full-fledged pre-school for up to 50 kids ages 4-6.  Our plan is that by then end of 2014 each of the 10 villages where we sponsor girls, and several others such as Kaliaroy, will have Learninc Centers.  Each LC will initially be constructed for a budget of about $500, a semi-permanent structure that should last 5-6 years.  Our plans long-term are to raise the money needed to build more expensive (about $2500) permanent Learning Centers in scores of villages around the Khulna area of Bangladesh.

(3) AND GROWING EVEN MORE.  The incredible fact that we can keep a 10-14 year-old girl in a local Bangladeshi school with full-time tutors and full educational support for only $35 a month, and have some overage to expand the GEP even more, means that we can set ambitious targets for future expansion, in Bangladesh and beyond.  Likewise, because we can build a Learning Center in Bangladesh for about $500, and keep young children in a pre-school for about $5 a month each (yes, you read that right - $5 a month!), we can expand our educational programs quite quickly as more donors support our work.  Goals for 2013 include a new GEP site in Cambodia, perhaps in Nepal and Vietnam as well, and further expansion in Bangladesh beyond the goals stated above as funds provide.

The bottom line is this: for a relatively small donation, either as a $35/month sponsor or a donor to our general fund, you can help us keep more girls-at-risk in school.  For a more sizeable contribution - anything from $500 or more - you can financially catalyze a Learning Center or help get scores of young kids into their first school.  It's really amazing how far your money can be stretched to fund education and opportunity for the poor.  Please consider partnering with us in empowering the vulnerable poor. 

The World's Best Investment

In these troubled economic times, I've got some simple investing advice for you: pay for poor girls to stay in school.  It's the best way to fight poverty, to invest in the future, and to change the world. 

I'm looking for a few generous, visionary people to partner with Speak Up as we look to expand our Girls Education Program in the coming year.  For a relatively small amount, you could be the key financial catalyst of an entirely new work, creating something that could one day help hundreds and hundreds of girls in poverty stay on the path to success and out of the worst forms of exploitation and abuse.  We can do amazing, inspiring things together.  Yemen, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Burma, Nepal.  The options are limitless.  Let me explain....

In October 2011, I started meeting with a friend in Bangladesh, Uttam Das, to look into his work in the Dalit village of Bangladesh, particularly my interest in issues affecting rural girls in deep poverty.  Our discussions ultimately brought to mind the past vision I had in Cambodia of scholarships to keep girls in school and out of so many of the troubles that can plague girls in poverty.  After several village visits, and endless plates of fish and rice, we came up with what is now the Girls Education Program, our effort to keep poor girls in school and on the path to success. 

As we crunched the numbers, it became clear that for about $300 a month we could help 20 girls stay in school by paying for all their educational expenses, including uniforms and tutors and fees, with enough left over to pay for regular meetings to bring them all together for encouragement and fun.  About $15 a month per student - pretty amazing! Speak Up didn't have any money set aside for this new program at the time, and I didn't have Board approval yet, so I did what any entrepreneur would do.  I took the plunge, telling Uttam that I would personally pay the $300 per month and we'd give it a go and see what happened.  What happened was beautiful.

Meet Emily Hopkins - GEP Global Sponsorship Coordinator

WE'D LIKE TO INTRODUCE YOU TO EMILY HOPKINS, GREAT FRIEND AND SPEAK UP SUPPORTER WHO IS ALSO NOW OUR GLOBAL SPONSORSHIP COORDINATOR.  EMILY IS COORDINATING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SPONSORS AND THEIR SPONSORED GIRL AND HANDLING MANY OF THE DETAILS OF THE GEP FROM THE US, INCLUDING RECRUITING MANY MORE SPONSORS.  EMILY AND HER HSUBAND LIVE IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA. 

HERE EMILY SHARES SOME OF HER THOUGHTS ON BANGLADESH AND WORKING WITH SPEAK UP. 

I don’t know exactly what it was about a year ago that gave me a heart for the victims of human trafficking.  There wasn’t one exact moment of something that I heard or saw that suddenly made me lose sleep over what was happening all over the world.  And yet for some reason I was feeling discontent and finding my thoughts drift towards the reality that all around the world there were women and children who were living in this brutal reality.

The first thing I did was give my birthday to the Polaris Project, telling all of my friends and family to take the money that they would have used on a gift or card and instead give it to a fundraising page that I had started on the Polaris Project website.   But I was still left feeling restless, like I was missing something.  I started talking to my friends about it and one of them directed me to a small group of people who were planning a trip to Bangladesh to work with a home full of girls who had been born in brothels.  I got in touch with them and it was at a preliminary meeting for the trip that I met Troy.

Fast forward about 6 months and I find myself in Khulna, Bangladesh, being greeted by a house full of 16 beautiful girls at the Alingon Home.  It’s honestly hard to describe my experience without writing a novella even though we were only there for two weeks.  There were so many factors and details that I could go on and on about.  The most important detail though, the one that both brought me to Khulna and the one that has me going back again, is the girls.

September Video Update

 

A quick video update about our work in Bangladesh. 

I failed to mention the name of the organization - Light Bangladesh -  the Bangladeshi NGO that runs the day-to-day operations of the Alingon Home for girls born into brothels.  Speak Up is the major donor and a partner to the Alingon Home project.  Speak Up first met with Light Bangladesh in December 2010 when there were 9 girls at the home.  Through the generous support of many Speak Up donors, some of them giving monthly support and others giving larger one-time gifts, Alingon has been able to expand to 16 girls now, all of them fully supported.  Speak Up and Light Bangladesh are currently looking for new donors to sponsor more girls to come to the Alingon Home to reach the goal of 25-30 girls. 

The Girls Education Program partners with Dhruba - itself a small NGO set up by Bangladeshi men who grew up in the same poor villages we are trying to help - to sponsor the education of poor village girls.  Our vision is to work through local organizations and orphanages and homes to sponsor girls to stay in school and on the path to success.  Our vision is to have the broader vision and funding "owned" by Speak Up and our donors, but also be owned and run by local NGOs. 

At Speak Up we value indigenous leaders and locally owned work, and our partnership with the Alingon Home and Dhruba are meant to reflect these values.  So when I use the word "we" I mean that in the broader, most generous sense - we are working together with our local partners and friends to advocate for girls in poverty.  I am aware of several situations where US-based organizations claim undue credit or ownership of work that is done by locals, so I wanted to be clear here and give others their credit. 

Thanks to your support, and our partnership with faithful local friends, our work in Bangladesh is maturing and growing, and laying the groundwork for similar work in other places soon. Thanks!

Girls Education Program - Empowering the Peaceful Revolutionaries

While the world focuses on the rage and protests and murders in the Arab world, I know a hundred peaceful revolutionaries right here in Bangladesh who are worth much more of your time.  They won't make the nightly news, they are quiet and humble, but in their own way they are shaping the future.  Poor rural girls in Bangladesh - Muslim and Hindu alike - face incredible obstacles.  But every time I visit their homes, I see courage and grace that puts many of the world's revolutionaries to shame. 

By fighting the odds to stay in school and forego early marriage, by believing that even a dirt-poor girl in a shanty-town village can rise above overwhelming poverty and make something good of her life for herself and her family, these Bangladeshi girls are on the path to change the world.  It will take a long time, it will be very difficult, and there are massive forces arrayed against them.  But change can happen through these girls and with the support of their families. 

They are the peaceful revolutionaries.  They are the ones who will change the world.

 I visited some predominantly Hindu Dalit villages again yesterday, and was once again struck by the grace of the young women who face such challenges.  Villages that are are permanently half-submerged under flood waters; a male-dominated culture where most girls drop out of school and are married as teens; an epidemic of violence and spousal abuse; and the simple reality of backbreaking poverty.  As I've said many times before, the burdens of poverty fall heaviest on girls, and in a hundred ways they bear the brunt of misery in rural poverty.

I know that smiles can be deceiving, and that none of my young friends are perfect angels.  I'm sure that they skip class and yell at their mom and a hundred other things like any other kid, and that they probably put on their best face for a foreign visitor to their village.  But some things cannot be faked. I have seen their villages, and I have talked to their leaders and families, and I know their dire situation.  In rain-soaked villages, in huts with no electricity, with mildewing textbooks and walks through the mud to overcrowded and under-resourced schools, these girls endure.  It's more than I could handle, that's for sure.

Our Girls Education Program is quite simple.  With Speak Up donors sponsoring an individual girl, we team with a local NGO to empower a young girl's education: books, supplies, tutors, uniforms, a training program, and regular meetings with her teachers and family to ensure that she is on track.  Starting here in Bangladesh, where most of the Dalit girls drop out of school quite young, we hope to one day empower thousands of girls to stay in school and rise out of poverty with dignity.  It's a small part of partnering with the poor to change lives. 

21 girls are now being sponsored in rural Bangladesh, a number we plan to significantly expand starting in 2013.  We hope one day to take the GEP to a number of other places where girls in poverty face the toughest obstacles to success: to Yemen, where many poor rural girls are denied an education and equal rights; to girls at risk of trafficking into brothels in Nepal and Cambodia and Vietnam; to vulnerable minority girls in Burma who are denied citizenship by their own government; and many, many more.

Educating girls in poverty - part of the Speak Up vision of changing the world.  It's our way, in a world of such violence and conflict, to empower peaceful revolutionaries who will change things forever.

If you would like more information about partnering with us in these efforts, please contact Speak Up at:  sponsor@speakupforthepoor.org 

Back to Work in Bangladesh

I'm back in Bangladesh after a four-month absence, and during the flight from Bangkok today my mind was racing with all the great things that Speak Up will be involved in during the next 18 months in Bangladesh.  Upon landing in Dhaka I could hardly wait to get started, so as I waited in the hour-long customs line at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport I started making calls to our friends and partners here.  Four quick conversations are a glimpse into what we have in the works...

I spoke with some friends with Light Bangladesh in Khulna, the organization that runs the Alingon Home for girls of which we are a major catalyst and financial backer.  16 girls born into brothels to sex-worker mothers live at Alingon now, and we hope to be able to remodel the Home and catalyze a major expansion this coming year.  In partnership with LB and one day with other NGOs here in Bangladesh, Speak Up plans to be part of the solution to trafficking, child prostitution and the exploitation of poor girls by helping remove hundreds of girls-at-risk from brothels.

Video: Girls Education Program - Bangladesh

 

A video briefly interviewing girls in Tipna who are sponsored through our Girls Education Program.  In the next 500 days (from today until the end of 2013, technically 496 days from today) we plan to increase the GEP from 21 to 101 girls and lay the groundwork to start 2014 with 200 or more.  Changes will be coming soon to our website and Facebook pages to make all of the pictures and donor experience more integrated to lay the groundwork for future expansion.

Please email sponsor@speakupforthepoor.org if you are interested in supporting one of the girls for $35 a month -thanks for your help!

Guaranteed to Break Your Heart

TWO OF MY BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS IN BANGLADESH

A lot of people ask me what it's like to work in Bangladesh - to visit brothels and advocate for girls-at-risk, to visit desperately poor villages and see such overwhelming need, to spend time with girls removed from brothels and try to convince more mothers to allow their girls to move to safe homes.  What is it like?  There are lots of answers I could give, and I tailor my response to the audience, but at times I'm tempted to say one thing that is painfully true: to work with poor girls from the brothels is guaranteed to break your heart.

It breaks your heart to know that there are beautiful young girls like my friends pictured here who will be forced into prostitution in a few years unless their mothers understand that we can offer them so much more if they can come to the Alingon Home.

It breaks your heart to know that for the lack of $25,000 to renovate the Alingon Home and make it a better place for 10-12 more girls to join, some mothers will keep their daughters in the brothels.

It breaks your heart to see girls who are finally on the path to a good life away from the brothels be tempted into foolish life choices by young men who want to take advantage of vulnerable, broken girls.

And it breaks your heart to know that the 21 girls we have worked with in Bangladesh are only the tip of the tip of the iceberg of young girls who might be abused in brothels one day. 

Sometimes - a lot of the time actually - I just don't know what to do.  Right this second, there are thousands upon thousands of girls and young women who are being trafficked into brothels all over the world, groomed to follow in their mother's footsteps as sex-workers, or lured into lives of prostitution and degradation as street prostitutes - many of them right here in America. 

It's happening everywhere, and it is not melodramatic or an exaggeration to say at this very moment girls are being raped for profit.  In Bangladesh, in the USA, in Thailand, everywhere.  And despite the way that sex-trafficking has grabbed the public attention over the past 10 years, homes for girls and resources for legal teams to fight crime and resources for aftercare for exploited girls are all woefully lacking and underfunded. 

Living among such wealth in America, these facts take me beyond heartbreak - they really anger me, and I struggle to find ways to communicate to my friends and broader network the urgent need to sacrificially give of our time and resources and lives to fight the great evil that is happening this very day.

Working with brothel girls is beautiful and life-changing.  I cannot think of anything more important than helping build a movement that will stand up for girls who face all sorts of unspeakable exploitation.  I have a great job.  But to tell the truth, the only thing that I can really guarantee anyone who wants to join this fight is that it is guaranteed to break your heart.

The bottom line is this: in four or five years, my friends pictured above will either be living in a safe home or be raped for profit.  Good people can come together to do all that we can to make sure that the safe option happens.  But I don't know what will happen, and just the thought of the grotesque evil that might face our beautiful young friends should be enough to break our hearts. 

Monthly Girls Education Program Meeting

July 13 - Khulna Division, Bangladesh - The 21 girls in our Girls Education Program come together from their 5 villages every month for a time of encouragement and training.  They hear an inspirational talk, share their progress in school, and also take an English test to measure their progress.  Here, the girls are taking their test under the direction of one of our local NGO partners. 

"I Can Not Be Defeated" - The Struggle for Hope in Rural Bangladesh

Here is the text of a letter, some personal details edited for privacy, from a girl we are sponsoring to stay in school in rural Bangladesh.  There are thousands more like her needing help - that's why we are building the Girls Education Program. 

Some of her language is profound but a bit flowery, a reflection of some of her education spent memorizing eloquent passages in English, some of which she doesn't fully understand.  But the gist of her message is crystal clear - she needs help to pursue her dream. 

Dear Sponsor,

I am 17 years old, and I read in Class 13.  My college name is Kumira Mohila College.  My subject is sociology.  I want to be a professor.  But my parents are very poor.  Their financial condition is not well enough.  My father is a farmer and mother is an illiterate woman.  She does all the house hold works with her own hands.  My father earn a little amount money.  But it is not enough for my family.  My father is a landless farmer who used to work on other people's land.  My parents are illiterate.  So they do not have any knowledge of science and health and nutrition and education.

A Recipe for Hope

Imagine this demographic situation:  Take 170 million people, more than half the population of the USA, and squeeze them into a space one-third the size of California.  Give them a per capita GDP of $1700 per year, 1/28th that of the USA.  Make the land prone to regular cyclones and floods, natural disasters that kill thousands and displace and destroy the livelihood of many more.  High population density, extreme poverty, natural disasters.  It's a recipe for disaster.

Now imagine that you are a young rural girl in that country, where the conservative religious and cultural climate makes it very difficult for you to break out of traditional expectations: early marriage, dropping out of school at age 13, complete submission to your husband even if you are abused, illiteracy.  Add in being a minority Hindu in a predominantly  Muslim country, and being a despised descendant of the Hindu untouchables where even your name sets you apart as lower caste, and the recipe for disaster becomes much worse. That's the situation facing the rural Dalit (untouchable Hindu) girls in Bangladesh: overcrowding, poverty, discrimination, early marriage, lack of education, and an epidemic of unreported abuse.