All the Children's Champions are now on their way home and it has started pouring with rain...typical...over the past two days we've held an art workshop with the girls and they made an evaluation of their time here and it has brought up some interesting issues.
Despite having no common language between them the girls got on very well with each other. They said that they drew strength from the similarities of their lives as child domestic workers. Although the contexts are quite different in the Philippines, Tanzania and Costa Rica, they were treated much the same by some of their employers and communities (although not all). They all mentioned that they are considered 'worthless' or 'valueless' by others. But, although they knew they had suffered, the girls all expressed that, by sharing their stories they gained strength from each other.
They worked hard from day one in a very alien environment, adult and formal - a daunting prospect for most of us let alone for five young women who are suffering from jet lag, finding the food strange and - for four of them - have never left their country before. It is incredible that they performed so well. But thinking about it, maybe it is not so incredible - they are driven by a shared passsion and they have a very clear goal (to end the exploitation of their fellow child domestic workers).
The laughter noticeably increased over the past two days - perhaps because the pressure was off a bit. We learned some words from each of our languages - and it is indicative of the things that were important to the girls that we learned the following words in Swahili - 'sleepy', 'full' (of food), 'article 4 and paragraph 4', 'come on girls', 'pink' (which was pinky) and 'chips' (which was chipsy!!)...that word alone created barrages of laughter.
It was a strong team this year at the ILC, helped considerably the girls' guardians - all committed and caring women - who gently pushed them towards challenges instead of away from them. I am inspired by them all.
Despite having no common language between them the girls got on very well with each other. They said that they drew strength from the similarities of their lives as child domestic workers. Although the contexts are quite different in the Philippines, Tanzania and Costa Rica, they were treated much the same by some of their employers and communities (although not all). They all mentioned that they are considered 'worthless' or 'valueless' by others. But, although they knew they had suffered, the girls all expressed that, by sharing their stories they gained strength from each other.
They worked hard from day one in a very alien environment, adult and formal - a daunting prospect for most of us let alone for five young women who are suffering from jet lag, finding the food strange and - for four of them - have never left their country before. It is incredible that they performed so well. But thinking about it, maybe it is not so incredible - they are driven by a shared passsion and they have a very clear goal (to end the exploitation of their fellow child domestic workers).
The laughter noticeably increased over the past two days - perhaps because the pressure was off a bit. We learned some words from each of our languages - and it is indicative of the things that were important to the girls that we learned the following words in Swahili - 'sleepy', 'full' (of food), 'article 4 and paragraph 4', 'come on girls', 'pink' (which was pinky) and 'chips' (which was chipsy!!)...that word alone created barrages of laughter.
It was a strong team this year at the ILC, helped considerably the girls' guardians - all committed and caring women - who gently pushed them towards challenges instead of away from them. I am inspired by them all.
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