WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE ALL DID IT! Thank you for your amazing support and Love.
We kicked off the month of October with a big, hairy dream: to sponsor a school of 250 worldchangers-to-be in Uganda.
Between 40-50 percent of young women in Gulu, Uganda drop out of school when they get their period. Without basic necessities like underwear and sanitary pads, girls are (understandably) too embarrassed to attend school. Missing a week or so each month, they eventually get so behind they have to drop out.
Once they drop out of school, these girls often have no choice but to leave home, marry, and bear children. They are overlooked for leadership roles and positions of influence in their country. Without an education, their options become severely limited.
So, we set out to come alongside Living Hope’s Keep a Girl in School initiative that provides a young woman with life skills training, sanitary towels and underwear for one year.
The price tag for one school? A big whopping $10,000. That works out to $40 per girl for an entire year.
We were ready to stand for our African sisters. We were ready to stand up for their renewed independence. Their right to choose. Their confidence. But we also desired to do something much larger: Draw a community together. Unite for a common purpose. Link arms across the nations.
Easy, right?
Not so much.
Three weeks into the month we were praying we’d at least make half the goal (and even that seemed like a stretch.)
But then something happened.
YOU happened.
YOU rallied. YOU put your hand up. YOU posted on Facebook. YOU tweeted. YOU got your women’s groups on board. YOU wrote blog posts. YOU gave what you could.
And we are so thankful.
On October 31, our big hairy goal was EXCEEDED *insert crazy jumping and down*! $10,000 (and counting!) has come in from men and women all over the world. 250 lives forever changed by our little army that could. Who knows what the ripple effect will be?
Thank you. From the absolute depths of our hearts.
Thank you for donating + giving of yourself + showing up + demonstrating tangibly what an amazing community this is.
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Missed out? Follow our crazy journey–and ALL.THE.FEELINGS.–in the four posts below:
Sweating for Sisterhood, by Megan Gahan:
We are the Red Tent, by Idelette McVicker
Breaking Blood: My Period and Other Misc. Joys of Being a Woman, by Tina Francis
Confessions of a Ball Hog, by Megan Gahan:
Keep A Girl In School from Watoto on Vimeo.
